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A. R. HORNE. 



COMMON SENSE 



HEALTH NOTES, 



BY 



A. E. HOENE, D. D., 

Editor "Nationai. Educator," and i,ate Principai, Keystone 
State Normai, Schooi.; Principai. Normai, Depart- 
ment Muhlenberg Coi^i^ege ; and Institute 
Instructor, Allentown, Penn. 



~ CHICAGO: 

A. FLANAGAN, Pubi^isher 







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COPYRIGHT 1893 

BY 

A. FLANAGAN. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The author and compiler of these notes has had an experience 
of nearly half a century as editor, lecturer and teacher. He has 
long felt the want of a hand-book on common sense hygiene. He 
has, in his talks before schools and on the platform, endeavored to 
impress upon young and old, particularly parents, teachers and 
pupils, the great importance of the preservation of the health. 

The sallow complexion, and the ghastly look of many, and 
especially of teacher and pupils, too often betray the fact that sad 
and serious mistakes are made on the subject of hygiene. The head- 
aches, failing of appetite, diphtheria, and even consumption, of 
which many suffer may, too often, be traced to the school-room. 

Dyspepsia is a fashionable disease in our country. The man or 
woman who is not a dyspeptic is considered unfashionble, or is, at 
least, an exception to the general rule. Diphtheria, sore throat and 
bad colds are as common as mosquitos on a summer evening. When 
the average person goes out, he must wrap a sheet or comfortable 
around his neck, for fear of catchimg cold. He is afraid of a breath 
of fresh air, and would rather sit or sleep for hours in the foulest 
atmosphere, than inhale a little fresh oxygen. He fears he might 
catch a cold. He is afraid to eat a piece of pie or of roast beef 



INTRODUCTION. 

^'because it won't agree with him." Miserable being he is. Greatly 
to be pitied, indeed ! By following the ordinary rules of health 
laid down in this book he need have no fear of roast beef not agree- 
ing with him. 

Much of this misery, through which a large portion of the 
human family pass, can be traced to poor ventilation, especially in 
the school-room. We have seen a fifteen by twenty school-room 
with low ceiling crowded to its utmost capacity with children, no 
ventilation, and the air thick enough to drive a nail in and hang a 
hat on. We have entered such school-rooms on a dull day where 
the air was so vitiated that we almost fainted on passing from the 
pure, sweet out-door atmosphere into such a den of corruption. 
Here they were, a sorry looking set, the teacher and fifty or sixty 
pupils, more dead than alive. 

At other places we have seen school-houses built with fast 
blinds to them, so that no cheering ray of God's sunlight could 
enter. As in a dark cellar, sat the innocent little ones six to eight 
hours a day. How glad they were to rush out of their prison, and 
get a glance of the glorious sunlight. What a perversion of the 
Almighty's wisdom. Why did he not make the world without a 
sun ? We suppose that people who build houses in this way would 
have made the world thus, had they been the makers of it. What 
a pity they were |not. Were we compelled to dwell in such a dun- 
geon, some time between night and daylight we would invite a 
Sampson to carry these gates of Gaza to a distant hill-top. By acci- 
dent, a pane of glass might easily be broken, to admit a little fresh 
air, where no provision has been made for it. Those teachers and 



INTRODUCTION. V 

directors and parents who deprive innocent children of God's fresh 
air, and his glorious sunlight, when he has made so much of it, and 
it can be had so cheaply, are guilty of a violation of that command- 
ment which says : ' ' Thou shalt not kill. ' ' 

That the practical common sense suggestions given in a limited 
way may be promulgated, in a wider sphere, has led to the publica- 
tian of these notes. If they are followed the average person's 
health will be benefitted much, while doctors and patent medicine 
men will lose much of their patronage. 

The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to HalVs 
Journal of Health, and numerous other sources, for some of these 
notes. They are sent forth in the hope that they may be promotive 
of great good. 

Allentown, Pa. THE AUTHOR. 



Common Sense Health Notes, 



Common Sense Notes About Air. 

Air consists of two elements, oxygen and hydrogen. 
The latter is but a negative, being neither promotive of, 
nor injurious to health. It is true a candle will not burn 
when immersed in it, nor will life be sustained by it. 
But this is simply for a want of oxygen, and not be- 
cause the gas is poisonous. Oxygen, however, is a 
positive element — a sustainer of combustion, and conse- 
quently also of life. For the want of this body, life 
would go out, just as the flame of a candle expires. 

Small Bedrooms. — If a person were put to sleep in 
a room six feet high, eight feet long, and a little over 
four feet broad, and no air was allowed to come in from 
without, all the life of the air would be consumed, and 
he would die at the expiration of the eighth hour, even 
if each breath given out could be kept to itself 

Since each out-breathing vitiates the whole body of 
air in a close chamber, as a drop of ink will discolor a 
glass of water, it should have a thorough ventilation; 
that is, a current of air should be passing through the 
open fire-place and chimney, carrying before it the bad 
air, leaving a fresher and purer in its place. 

7 



8 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

But very few chambers in this country measure 
twelve feet square, and consequently are not large 
enough for one person, let alone two ; and in proportion 
as the room is too small, in such proportion are the 
lungs and body and blood deprived of their essential 
food, as essential to life as water is to the fish, and in 
such proportion are sown the seeds of disease and 
premature death. 

A man takes into the lungs in twenty-four hours 
about sixty hogsheads of air, as in health he breathes 
about eighteen times in a minute, on an average, for 
the twenty-four hours, and takes in about a pint or 
forty cubic inches at a breath. 

The air, when inhaled, undergoes a change, the 
oxygen combining with the particles of matter in the 
body, which are carbon, forms carbonic acid gas — a 
deadly poison. To demonstrate this, take an ordinary 
glass jar, through a glass tube, or in its absence, a 
smoke pipe, exhale the contents of your lungs. In or- 
der to do this the jar must be filled with water, and then 
inverted and held in this position, in a bucket full of 
\^ater. As you thus exhale the contents of your lungs 
into the jar full of water, the water will be displaced, 
and the contents of the lungs fill the jar. Now lower 
into this jar, before any air is admitted, a lighted can- 
dle. The flame will immediately expire. This exper- 
iment may be repeated several times in the same jar. 
The reason of the light going out, is the presence, in 
the jar, of carbonic acid gas — the same poisonous sub- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 9 

Stance found at times in old cellars, wells, and other low 
places. It is evident that where combustion is not sup- 
ported life cannot exist — life is a continued act of com- 
bustion. Whoever doubts this may but try to go down 
into a well, where a candle will not bum. 

This same gas accumulates wherever there is com- 
bustion, such as fires, lights, breathing, etc. Every- 
where, in other words, where there is not a constant 
supply of fresh air, where there is not a constant circu- 
lation of fresh air, the air becomes foul, contaminated, 
poisonous. Such will be the case in a room where 
there is breathing, or a fire or a light burning. It is 
astonishing how soon the fresh air of even a large 
room will become so vitiated, though there are but few 
persons in it, that it is no longer fit for inhalation and 
becomes positively prejudicial to life. 

Breathing a bad air for a very few days may 
introduce a poison into the system which shall so 
impregnate it that no amount of subsequent exposure 
to a pure atmosphere will avail to arrest its malignant 
and fatal influences, although months and years have 
passed away since the occurrence of the infection. 

If ordinary chambers are but equal to twelve feet 
square, and that is barely enough for one sleeper, and 
it is the common custom for two at least to occupy such 
a room, we have the general fact of a world of people 
voluntarily allotting to themselves just one-half of the 
requisite amount of air during every night of their 
existence, by which their blood is just half purified, 



10 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

their systems just half washed out, just half renovated \ 

An ordinary candle forms eight hundred cubic 
inches of carbonic acid gas in an hour, an average sized 
man does the same in half an hour. One man in a 
room, twelve feet long, broad and high, into which no 
fresh air is admitted, would convert the whole atmos- 
phere into carbonic acid gas in twelve hours. The 
only reason why thousands of persons, who going to 
bed in good health, in a small room, are not dead 
before morning, is because some air forces itself into 
the room at the cracks of doors and windows. 

When a person enters a room, where others have 
been vitiating the air for some time, he feels an 
oppressiveness, the air is close, that is, it has but little 
oxygen. Those whose lungs are weak feel it most. 
But, whether felt or not, inhaling bad air — air which 
has been partly converted into carbonic acid gas, 
injures health and destroys life gradually. 

Expired air contains water}^ vapor, carbonic acid 
gas, and animal matter, which is probably the most 
deleterious of all. The large amount of watery vapor 
is shown by breathing upon a cold window pane: 
carbonic acid by blowing the breath through lime 
water : and the presence of animal matter may be 
detected by breathing into a laige bottle and tightly 
corking it for several days. A fetid odor will then 
indicate the decay of animal particles. 

This exhalation imparts an odor to the breath, and 
is the active agent in the communication of contagious 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 11 

diseases. The foul air of churches, tightly closed 
during the week, with the bad air of the previous 
Sunday, furnishes frequent illustrations of the third 
class of impurities. 

It is a mistaken idea that carbonic acid will settle to 
the floor, and there remain out of harm's way. By the 
law of diffusion of gases, it is immediately disseminated 
through the room, and, unless removed by a constant 
supply of fresh air, cannot fail of producing injurious 
effects. It is not enough to renew the air of the room 
at recess at noon. The supply should be constant. In 
many rooms the air is vitiated in less than ten minutes. 
No physiologist pretends that less than seven cubic feet 
of air per minute are needed for each person, and some 
say that ten feet are necessary to maintain a proper 
condition of the atmosphere. 

Poorly Ventilated School-houses. — In many 
cases the true cause of a dislike for school may be 
found in a poorly ventilated house. Nor is a neglect 
of proper ventilation confined alone to district schools. 
In towns and cities where beautiful buildings attract 
the eye of the visitor, where furniture and apparatus 
are faultless, children may be found living innocently 
in an atmosphere of poison ; inhaling the poisonous 
effluvia which pervades the atmosphere, and is not only 
re-breathed, but adheres to all surroundings, it sticks to 
the walls and furniture, settles into the drinking cups, 
food, utensils ; permeates the clothing and attaches to 
the person. It creates a nidus which is not only in 



12 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

itself poisonous, but also becomes a hot-bed for planting 
and propagating specific poisons, such as small-pox, 
scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, and the 
whole categor}^ of epidemic diseases, and is that frightful 
source of scrofula and consumption. 

The specific poisons which perpetuate this class of 
diseases are kept alive by the conditions common to 
the school-rooms. 

Heat intensifies, but does not cause the summer 
poisons, and it frequently has the same efiect in over- 
heated school-rooms at other seasons. In taking charge 
of a school, a teacher becomes responsible, not alone 
for the intellectual and moral development of his 
pupils, but also for the health of the children committed 
to his trust. 

Body as well as mind require the constant care of 
the true teacher. A teacher has as much moral right 
to dose his pupils wdth arsenic as to permit the free 
inhalation of carbonic acid gas, and, what is worse, 
animal exhalations. 

In one case the effects are immediately visible; in 
the other they are frequently deferred, but just as 
certainly go to make up the account which is balanced 
only by disease or death. Too often the teacher can, 
with some apparent justice, throw the responsibility 
npon school officers and school committees. 

In many districts no arrangement whatever is made 
for lowering windows, or for the escape of foul air. 
Farmers are always thoughtful enough to place slats 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 13 

on their oarns and bam windows for the purpose of 
securing proper ventilation for their stock. They know 
animals will not thrive, and that they will become 
diseased without such precaution, but the same persons 
go together and build school-houses without one thought 
or one care for the supply of pure air to their children. 
But fresh air is so free and the supply so bounteous, 
that no teacher can justly plead defective building ar- 
rangements. Provide a place for the escape of warm foul 
air, and a supply of new air will generally find its way 
through crevices of doors and windows. School-houses 
nearly always have a trap-door in the ceiling ; throw 
that off partially, or wholly, and you will have done 
much to secure pure air in the school-room. The air 
may sometimes seem cool, but a temperature of sixty 
degrees is far better than a filthy, noxious atmosphere. 
The supply of oxygen to the lungs is a physiological 
necessity. 

In cold weather doors and windows are usually 
closed, and the matter of pure air becomes one of 
serious importance. During the day, the air of living- 
rooms is pretty certain to be changed more or less by 
the frequent opening of outside doors. During the 
night, however, not infrequently all outside openings 
are tightly closed, and the occupants of sleeping-rooms 
might almost as well place themselves for the eight or 
ten sleeping hours of night in an air-tight box. 

In the morning, persons who thus deprive themselves 
of life-giving oxygen, the great necessity of life, awake 



14 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

unrefreshed and dispirited, languid, pale and weak, 
with headache, giddiness, no appetite, and many other 
symptoms of the foul air poisoning to which the system 
has been subjected. This accounts for a very large part 
of the colds and other forms of physical wretchedness 
of which a good many complain at this season of the 
year, and which is ordinarily ascribed to the change of 
season. The system is filled with impurities as a result 
of deficient oxygenation of the blood, and so the body 
becomes in a high degree susceptible to all causes of 
vital disturbance. The reception of a few fever germs 
is all-sufiicient to bring on a violent illness, by setting 
fire to the fever- feeding material with which the tissues 
are filled as the result of deficient air cleansing. 

Airing Apparel of Wear. — On a clear, cool, dry 
day, make a point of exposing wearing apparel to air 
and sunshine. Articles of clothing are absorbents of 
foul, poisonous gases, which in turn will be absorbed by 
the pores of the skin, if the clothing is worn without 
being thoroughly ventilated. 

Bad Ventilation. —Many persons, more particu- 
larly females, and especially female teachers, and girls 
attending school, become sufferers in consequence of bad 
ventilation, from throat troubles, headaches, nausea at 
stomach, and the legitimate consequences of breathing 
the fetid atmosphere of illy ventilated rooms. 

The great question, however, is how to remedy 
this state of afiairs. It certainly is not good policy to 
lower the tops of the window-sash so as to admit the 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 15 

raw, cold air on the heads, necks and backs of those 
sitting near by. If the air-cells in the lungs were 
opened and spread out on a wall, over four hundred 
square feet of surface would be covered, or about as 
much as the whole surface of the body. If the hand be 
put in water, and then suddenly placed on any part of 
the body, the shock of the coldness is such that it pro- 
duces a disagreeable sensation all through the system. 
If a bucket of cold water were dashed over our bodies, 
immediately on coming out of a warm apartment, the 
shock and the ill effects would prove fatal in many 
cases, especially if this were repeated a dozen times. 

The lungs are as sensitive as the skin. We breathe 
sixteen times a minute, and thus inhale the cold air by 
the bucketful, where it is thus thrown upon us. Hence 
it is not to be wondered at that persons often *' catch 
their death of cold" in the shape of pleurisy, lung 
fever, pneumonia, bad colds and terrible chills. 

How to Ventilate. Here are a few suggestions : 

Always ventilate thoroughly by opening windows 
and doors of every room, whether school room, church, 
sleeping apartment, etc. , where there has been foul air, 
as soon as everybody is out. This should be done at 
recess time in school rooms, and especially in the 
evening after dismission. 

Never allow dinners or lunches to be eaten in the 
room where persons hive been for hours beforehand. 
This applies to factories,' workshops, etc. , as well as to 
schools. Always compel all to go out into the open air 



16 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

and walk or run off the foul air for five minutes before 
eating in such a room. Meanwhile let the room be 
ventilated by opening doors and windows. Tr>^ this 
and you will be delighted with the change. 

Have several gymnastic or singing recesses in 
school each half da}^, and while two or three minutes, 
or even five are thus spent in profitable recreation, 
throw open doors and windows, but have them closed as 
soon as the exercise is over. 

Where lowering and raising of windows must be 
resorted to for ventilation, be exceedingly careful to 
have all so seated that no draught of cold air can reach 
them. Whenever a window is lowered from the top, it 
should also be raised below, so as to allow a current of 
air to circulate, and thus carry off the foul air. 

Teach children how to breathe, how to expand 
the chest and fill the lungs, not to inhale with mouth 
open, but through the nose, and then when they get out 
into the fresh air enjoin on them to inhale and exhale 
to the full capacity of the lungs, filling every air cell. 
This should be done several times a day, and particu- 
larly in the night before retiring. Having a breathing 
exercise in school, as well as a reading, an arithmetic and 
a grammar drill. It is as necessary to learn to breathe as 
it is to learn to spell and read. 

As you value your own life and that of your child, 
do not neglect ventilation, and if compelled to remain 
in badly ventilated rooms any length of time embrace 
the first opportunity to inhale fresh air out of doors. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 17 

We talk in this Christian land loudly of the 
dreadful results of paganism, and yet how much there 
is to be learned and done at home ! We are horrified at 
the idea of the heathen mother casting her baby into 
the Ganges, of the wife burning a voluntary sacrifice on 
the funeral pile of her dead husband, but what have we 
to say of an innocent babe being not suddenly, and 
perhaps painlessly brought to death by drowning, but 
by a slow and tortuous process, killed off by poisonous 
air? Or, what say we of the young man or woman 
who commits premeditated suicide by inhaling a most 
pestiferous, deadly poison, when God's fresh air can be 
had without money and without price? Wake up, 
preacher of Christ, preach a gospel of health, a gospel 
of the salvation of the body as well as the soul, and 
you will also thus preach Christ. Wake up, teachers, 
and teach your pupils how to save themselves from a 
miserable existence while they live, and an untimely 
death, and you will be doing a most noble work. 
Parents, impress the lessons of health upon your 
offspring, and teach them thus to avoid misery and 
become happy. And we who know our duty, blessed 
are we if we do it. He that knoweth to do good, and 
doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes. 



18 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Health Notes for Autumn. 

Autumn. — This is the season when both out of 
doors and in the house great care must be taken of 
health. Insufficient clothing, inconsiderate exposure, 
and other various indiscretions are prejudicial to health. 
Health is easily lost, but not so easily regained. An 
ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure. 
A little attention to the laws of health may prevent 
much sickness and distress. Every teacher and parent 
is responsible, to a great extent, for the health and 
well-being of those committed to his care. Observe 
and enforce the following common sense suggestions : 

Let the clothing be sufficient, rather a little 
uncomfortable than insufficient. It is better to don the 
heavy underwear of winter now than to defer doing so 
and catch a severe cold. 

Avoid all exposure, such as draughts, throwing aside' 
articles of clothing, when they become uncomfortable, 
sitting on the porch, at an open window, on the door- 
step, etc. 

Do not bundle up the throat with scarfs, mufflers 
nor anything else. If the throat is kept bare it will 
become hardened like the face, and thus enabled to 
stand almost any kind of exposure. Wrapping it up 
makes it susceptible to changes, and readily affected 
thereby. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 19 

There is no necessity for children getting the 
measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, scarlet fever, 
diphtheria and similar diseases. If they are kept aloof 
from those attacked thereby till they are outgrown, the 
danger of taking these diseases is not very great. 

The danger of taking cold is always greater in an 
overheated room than in one a little uncomfortable, 
provided there is no dampness. 

In illy ventilated rooms the system becomes filled 
with impurities, and thus the body becomes susceptible 
to all kinds of vital disturbances, the reception of fever 
germs, and various kinds of illness, of which headaches 
are the precursors. Ventilate school rooms, sitting 
rooms, sleeping apartments, vEntii^ate, ventilate. 

In cold weather there is danger of bathing being 
neglected. Now is the time when it is most necessary, 
because the heavier the clothing the more the effluvia 
of the body are retained, therefore the absolute neces- 
sity of keeping the body clean by frequent ablutions. 
Bathe, wash, keep the body clean. 

September a Sickly Month. — September is the 
most sickly month of the entire year. It is fruitful in 
diarrhcea, dysentery and fevers of every description, from 
the common fever and ague to the most malignant form 
of bilious, congestive and yellow fever. 

The causes are hot days and cool nights, and the 
habits of individuals. Few persons have good appetites 
in hot weather. They then resort to stimulants. The 
stomach is taxed beyond its ability to work by eating to 



20 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

the fill of a stimulated appetite. The result is that the 
food is not perfectly assimilated, and hence it makes 
bad blood. The entire mass of blood becomes cor- 
rupted, and the person feels unwell. Do iiot force the 
appetite. He ** takes something,'* perhaps, whisky, 
beer, peppermint, an appetizer, a tonic, tea, bitters, in 
short anything or everything, Lebens^ Tinctur^ Life 
Elixir to Schnapps, 

The delicate mucous membrane or lining of the 
stomach is irritated, he imagines he feels a gnawing 
sensation, which indeed he does, but it is a morbid 
sensation not a healthful craving for food, and he 
continues to stuff himself with additional food. The 
stomach, in fact the whole machinery of the body, is 
nov/ taxed still more severely. The result is that the 
body loses its vigor, its capability of resisting causes of 
disease and warding off sickness. ' ' The slightest thing 
in the v/orld ' ' gives such a person a cold. The reason 
is he is full of bad blood. 

The appetite gives out more and more, there is a 
bad taste in the mouth on waking up in the morning, 
an uncomfortable chilliness, and the person is a fit 
subject for any cause of disease existing in the atmos- 
phere; he becomes the first victim to any epidemic. 

It is customary at this season to attribute to the 
morbid influence of ** malaria'' many^ of the diseases 
which are really the result of exposure to midday heat 
and nocturnal chilliness. The air temperature is now 
subject to great diurnal range because the solar heat 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 21 

absorbed by the soil during sunshine hours is rapidly 
thrown oiF at nightfall. On the far western plains 
thermal changes of thirty-two degrees in twenty-four 
hours have recently been reported. These daily vicissi- 
tudes are less marked near the sea coast and at some 
points in the arctic regions, as Melville Island. During 
the winter the midnight and the midday temperatures 
are almost identical. But in all the middle latitudes, 
even on our Atlantic seaboard, the contrasts are very 
sensible. Excursionists and travelers especially should 
keep out of the night air, and if all classes would be 
prudent in this respect we should hear but little of 
malarial fevers in autumn. 

The miasm generated by decaying vegetable matter, 
mud, leaves, plants, roots, etc., when the noonday sun 
shines upon them, rises into the air. At night this air 
is condensed, becomes heavy, falls to the ground, is 
breathed in the swamps of the South, on the banks of 
rivers, along the shores of lakes, along streams in 
valleys, but more particularly on elevated ground, and 
produces the diseases mentioned above. 

How to Escape Malaria. — How can a person 
escape these malign effects? Ivive plainly, temper- 
ately, exercise abundantly, work off the bad blood and 
effete matter in the system ; do not overload the stomach, 
use no stimulants, avoid pepper, salt and spices in 
general ; the less meat the better, except a good piece 
of beefsteak for breakfast, avoid corn bread especially, 
also bacon — hear it, southern friends, dispense with 
your bacon; no bacon ! no bacon ! 



22 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

Never go out of doors before you have some 
warm food in the stomach, particularly a cup of good 
strong coffee, none of your cloudy, muddy stuff in 
which the coffee has been omitted. Ripe fruit, eaten in 
season, is always healthful. But sometimes the fruit is 
eaten unripe and frequently these damp, murky days 
decay begins almost the moment it is ripe. When it is 
thus eaten it is no longer in a healthful condition. In 
this state it is poisonous and breeds disease. As such it 
should be shunned. 

All decaying matter should be carefully and con- 
scientiously removed whether in cellar, pantry, 
outbuildings, yard, garden, street, alley or farm. Allow 
no rotting fruits or vegetables about the premises. 
Search from cellar to garret daily, and remove whatever 
is suspicious without delay. 

This state of things, if permitted, is a prolific 
breeder of disease. Better pay the children a small 
sum to gather up and haul away this refuse than to pay 
a large doctor's bill and entail suffering, sickness and 
death on you and yours. 

Here, by the way, let us also again shock the 
pseudo modesty of some by calling attention to the 
vital necessity of cleaning and disinfecting cesspools 
and privies. The damp air carries the poisonous 
emanations to your own and neighboring buildings, to 
say nothing of the stench and vile odors which 
arise from them in damp weather. Buy a pound of 
copperas and dissolve it in two gallons of water. Pour 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 23 

the solution by the tincupful into water closets and 
around the building. 

Do it at once. Delays are dangerous. . Save your- 
self and family. 

Dampness Causes Sickness. — The raw, damp 
mornings and evenings are fruitful causes of colds and 
sickness. Damp walls, damp rooms, damp cellars, 
damp ground and damp clothes are productive of heavy 
colds. Sitting in a damp room until one feels chilly, 
dressing in damp clothes which have been lying about 
on damp floors in the night, damp parlors, sitting 
rooms and school rooms, in which there are as yet no 
fires, will swell the sick list and mortality bill most 
fearfully. 

What is to be done? The weather cannot be 
changed. These cool, damp September nights visit us 
every year, only some years more so than others, as the 
season is more wet than dry. Now is the time for 
fever, this is the month malign. We cannot change 
the month, but we can guard against exposing our- 
selves unnecessarily to the dampness, or remaining 
long in a damp, chilly room. 

Fires must be made to take off the dampness, even 
if for only half an hour in a day. Undergarments 
must again be worn. Avoid being out in the dampness, 
especially after nightfall. Always have a bright fire 
after sunset. Do not retire at night into a damp bed, 
even if it only feels damp. Do not ''slip on'* your 
damp clothes feeling sticky, like molasses, where they 



24 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

touch the body. Keep windows and doors closed until 
the sun shines out brightly again. Remember that 
diphtheria, scarlet fever, malaria, rheumatism, etc., 
are getting in their deadly work, and will carry off to 
the grave their victims by thousands this fall again, not 
only children, but also adults. Will you be one of 
them? Multitudes of children are taken sick with 
different maladies, resulting from damp school rooms, 
with possibly water in the cellars. Nine-tenths of 
these diseases and deaths are avoidable. It is our duty 
toward God to do all in our power to preserve our 
health and a clean, dry, warm room will go far toward 
accomplishing this. 

Parents, see that your children wear underclothing; 
begin now ; never mind a few warm or even hot days ; 
they can be endured much better than subsequent 
sickness ; the cool, damp days and nights will soon 
have the majority. Do not allow children to run 
around with bare feet and damp stockings at this 
season. Make them eat something warm before they 
go out in the morning. It will not hurt you to observe 
the same rules, though children are more sensitive and 
hence get sick more frequently. 

Teacher, you especially are under obligations to 
God and to children and their parents to enjoin the 
observance of the laws of health upon the young. You 
will have to answer at the bar of your conscience, and 
at the day of judgment, if you are derelict in these 
matters. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 25 

Observe the I^aws of Health. — In general keep 
a fire in the living room, night and morning, on these 
September days, when it is hot in the middle of the 
day, but cool and damp at its beginning and close. If 
you have a good old-fashioned hearth, so much the 
better. Keep bright fire on it; nothing is more 
pleasant or healthy. Do not think because you have a 
fire 3^ou must shut the doors. This is better than 
quinine for keeping off malaria. Fruit, peaches, 
apples, pears and grapes are much more healthful than 
pastry and pudding. Trust in God and you will have 
done your duty, and most likely escape the evils of the 
month malign. 






COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 



Apoplexy. 

Description. — This disease has become very com- 
mon of late years. The word Apoplexy means * 'stricken 
from;'' a description given by the Greeks, under the 
feeling that it was of unearthly origin. The person falls 
down as if stricken with death. There is neither thought, 
feeling, nor voluntary motion. There is no sign of life, 
except that of heavy breathing. It comes on with the 
suddenness of the lightning's flash, and with as little 
premonition. A common fainting fit occurs suddenly, 
but there is no breathing, no pulse, and the face is pale 
and shrunken. In apoplexy, if the person is not really 
dead, the face is flushed, the breathing loud, and the 
pulse full and strong, usually. In mild attacks, a 
person is found in bed of a morning apparently in a 
sound sleep ; but if so, he can be easily waked up. In 
apoplexy no amount of shaking makes any impression. 
The earliest Greek writers described apoplexy with a 
minute accuracy, which has scarcely been exceeded 
since, showing that it is a malady belonging to all time. 
To pass from apparent perfect health to instant death 
on entering one's own dwelling, or sitting down to the 
family table, or while at the happy fireside, in the 
loving interchange of afiectionate ofiices, strikes us as 
being perfectly terrible. But the terror belongs to the 
witness ; the victim is as perfectly destitute of thought, 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 27 

feeling, sensation, and consciousness, for the time being, 
as if the head had been taken off by a cannon t ball. In 
many cases, after lying for hours and even days in a 
state of perfect insensibility, the patient wakes up as if 
from an uneasy sleep or dream; but often, as many 
sadly know, there is no return to life again. The 
essential nature of the disease seems to be such an 
excess of blood in the brain that its appropriate vessels 
or channels cannot contain it, and it is ' 'extra vasated,'* 
let out, upon the substance of the brain itself, and thus 
arrests the functions of life. Persons with short necks, 
who are * 'thick-set," corpulent, are almost the sole 
subjects of apoplexy, when not induced by falls, blows, 
shocks, and overdoses of certain drugs. 

Apoplexy Avoidable. — Apoplexy is an avoidable 
disease, except in some cases of accidents, which we 
can neither foresee nor prevent ; it is, essentially, too 
much blood in the brain. This blood is either sent 
there too rapidly, or, when there, is detained in some 
unnatural manner, the essential effect being the same. 
Whatever "excites the brain" does so by sending an 
unnatural amount of blood there ; such as intense and 
long thought on one subject. Also all kinds of liquors, 
containing alcohol, whether ale, beer, cider, wine or 
brandy, excite the brain, and endangers apoplexy. So 
will a hearty meal, especially if alcoholic drinks are 
taken at the same time ; going to bed soon after eating 
heartil}^, sleeping on the back, if corpulent, may bring 
on an attack any night ; so will a hot bath, so will a 



28 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

cold bath soon after eating. The ultimate effects of all 
opiates are to detain the blood in the brain, while the 
things just mentioned send it there in excess. The 
great preventives are v/arm feet, regular daily bodily 
habits, eating nothing later than three o'clock p.m., and 
the avoidance of opiates, tobacco and all that can intox- 
icate. In case of an attack send for a physician. 
Meanwhile, put the feet in i^^^f water, and envelop the 
head with cold water ; ice is still better. It is safer to 
live in a hilly than level country, in town than country. 
Winter is more dangerous than summer. The liability 
increases rapidly after forty years of age, greatest at 
sixty, when it gradually diminishes. Statistics seem to 
show^ that the most dangerous years are forty-eight, fifty- 
eight, sixty-six, while forty-six and forty-nine are almost 
exempt. The well-to-do are more liable than the labor- 
ing. Sudden changes of weather promote attacks. Let 
the liable, especially, live in reference to these well-es- 
tablished facts. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 29 



Bathing. 

All Should Bathe. — Every person should take a 
good wash, a thorough bathing, once a week, a thor- 
ough washing of the whole body with soap, water 
and a brush. Do not remain in the water longer than 
ten minutes, and keep in active motion all the time. 
Never bathe on a full stomach. The hands, face, 
neck, throat, arm and armpits should be washed once 
a day. 

Spring is the time of the year that baths are needed 
most. Warm weather coming on induces more sensible 
and insensible perspiration than in winter time, and 
hence the importance of more frequent baths. The 
Sanitary World says : ' ' Warm baths will prevent the 
most virulent diseases. A person who may be in fear 
of having received infection of any kind should take a 
warm bath, suffer perspiration to ensue, and then rub 
dry. Dress warmly to guard against taking cold. If 
the system has imbibed any infectious matter, it will be 
removed by resorting to this process, if done before the 
infection has time to spread over the system ; and even 
if some time has elapsed the drenching perspiration 
that may be induced by hot water will be very certain 
to remove it. 

In cases of congestion, bilious colic, inflammation, 
etc., there is no remedy more certain to give relief In 



30 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

cases of obstinate constipation, also, wonderful cures 
have been wrought. For sore throat, diphtheria and 
intiammation of the lungs, a hot compress is one of the 
most potent remedies. ' ' 

The trouble sometimes is to find conveniences for 
a bath, especially at school. The pupils at our Soldiers' 
Orphan Schools bathe in pickle barrels, six of them 
being "dumped in '' at a time, and the same water used 
for about twenty-five and one towel for fifty. Such 
bathing is worse than none. In many of the normal 
schools, boarding schools and colleges there are no pro- 
visions whatever for bathing. Many homes of our land 
have none, and the worst of the matter is that, in con- 
sequence, many persons have not had their entire bodies 
bathed since the days of their babyhood. They live in 
spite of the fact that the crust of ages has accum-ulated 
on their bodies, but many of them live miserably, com- 
plaining, aching, suffering and breeding disease all the 
time. 

I/Uxury of the Bath.— O what a luxury a good 
warm bath, followed by a thorough rubbing with a 
coarse towel is ! Be determined to have it. You can 
get it even when at school, or in a home where there 
are not the conveniences of a bath tub and warm water. 

An alcohol lamp and pan with a handle to it will 
answer for the purpose of heating water where it cannot 
be had in the kitchen. The entire arrangement will 
not cost fifty cents. In almost any school or family, 
however, a wash-basin full of hot water can be had. A 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 31 

Sponge, a good soft Turkish wash rag, a rough towel 
and a warm room will constitute your bathing facilities. 
With these, if you have no better conveniences, bathe 
your entire body at least once or twice a week, wherever 
you are, in school or at home, domi militaeqice^ and 
you v/ill be surprised at the store of health and Com- 
fort received. It will be value received in full. 

Necessary to Health. — Among all the appliances 
for health and comfort to mankind, we may safely say 
there is nothing so well known, so useful and withal so 
comforting and yet so little practiced, so carelessly and 
thoughtlessly neglected as judicious bathing. The 
$kin of the human body, from head to foot, is a network 
of pores which ought always to be kept free and clear of 
obstructions. These pores are the openings into minute 
tubes or channels, which lead through unseen meander- 
ings into the sanctum of life within. 

To those blessed with good health, a bath as a 
common sense appliance, gives thrift and growth to 
healthy functions, a brightness and delightful serenity, 
a clearness of mind and buoyancy of spirit. It is 
certainly a blessing to both mind and body. For the 
mental worker it is a nerve tonic. A thorough immer- 
sion in water of proper temperature will calm and give 
strength and tone to his whole system. The indoor 
laborer who gets but a scanty supply of fresh air, needs 
a bath to obtain those invigorating elements so common 
in the open air. 

The outdoor laborefr— especially the farmer — who 



I 
32 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

works with heroic energy all day long, unavoidably 
gathers on the entire surface of his body a complete 
prison wall of dust and thickening, gummy perspira- 
tion ; and when his day's work is done he needs then, 
more than any other thing, not only a wash but a good, 
luscious, full bath to fit him for a clean bed and a 
refreshing sleep. 

The glutinous mass of perspiration, dust and filth, 
which gathers on the surface of the body naturally 
covers and clogs the pores, and often enters them and 
poisons the system. To remove that filth frequent 
ablutions and occasional immersion in water are 
exceedingly desirable and usually indispensible to 
health and comfort ; consequently every family should 
have a convenient bath — and a full bath, too — of some 
kind, not only for general neatness of person, so 
desirable to every individual of taste and culture, but 
as a means of preserving health, and in many cases, 
especially under the advice of a good physician, as the 
safest, pleasantest and one of the most powerful and 
efficient means of combating disease. Baths assist in 
curing any disease. Directed by good judgment and 
wise counsel, a bath is a valuable auxiliary to other 
remedies, and it can be used when internal remedies 
cannot. In the long catalogue of diseases to which 
flesh is heir, scarcely one can be named in the treatment 
of which a bath is useless. In an emergency, which 
often happens when least expected, as in cholera, 
cholera infantum, cholera morbus, cramps, fits, etc., a 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 33 

pliable, portable bath wliicb requires but little water, 
ready at just the right time, may save some precious 
life. 




34 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 



^ 



The Blood. 



Purifying the Blood. — Natural means are the 
best for purifying the blood in cases where the indi- 
vidual is in good health, and so able to employ them. 
To ^ ' physic ' ' for this end — whether with the old- 
fashioned '^sulphur and molasses, '* or '*root beer," or 
with any of the more modern '* tonics" or ** blood pu- 
rifiers" — is a mistake ; as it is, also, to be bled, which 
in cases of feebleness may be absolutely dangerous. 
The way to purify the blood is not by putting some- 
thing into it, or by draining it impartially, but by tak- 
ing out of it the impure substances which it contains. 
Nature has provided five organs for doing this — the 
lungs, skin, kidneys, liver and bowels. 

Why Impure? — The blood becomes impure for 
one or both of two reasons : i. Something impure has 
been put into it. 2. The five excretory organs just 
mentioned have not been sufficiently active. In the 
first case alter your diet, eschewing pasty, "heavy" 
foods and everything unhygienic. In both cases set the 
excretory apparatus in full operation. To do this for 
the lungs take abundant exercise in the open air. The 
more vigorous this is, short of exhaustion, the better, 
for the quicker and deeper will be the respiration and 
the greater will be the amount of impurity, in conse- 
quence, thrown off. Remember that a person walking 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 35 

at the rate of three miles an hour breathes three times 
as much air as if he were sitting still, and that in more 
active exercise the benefit received is in proportion. 

To quicken the action of the skin get up a good 
sweat. . Take hot drinks and wrap up in blankets. 
Try a hot bath two or three times a week. Friction, 
too, applied to the skin after bathing, is of great assist- 
ance. If robust, though it would perhaps be an 
extreme measure, it might be well, and could not be 
dangerous, to take a Turkish vapor bath every day for a 
while. 

The kidneys, liver and bowels may be stimulated 
to full action by drinking hot water in abundance — say 
from twelve to twenty glasses a day. No better means 
exists for accomplishing this end. Not only does it 
stimulate the organs just named, but it cleanses the 
stomach, liver and kidneys, and the water permeating 
the whole body, drains impurities from it as it passes off 
by the pores. 

Hot baths take water — sometimes as much as two 
pints of it — and, with it, impurities, out of the blood, 
which induces thirst, and so increases the water drinking, 
which in turn supplies the water lost, as well as increases 
the sweating. The exercise produces sweating, which 
causes increased water drinking ; it also invigorates the 
action of the diaphragm, which squeezes the old bile 
out of the liver, and that again augments the water 
drinking. Thus each means used assists the others, 
and the entire treatment gains cumulative impetus 
thoroughly to do its work. 



36 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES 



Croup. 

How Croup Originates. I/ife Saving Sugges- 
tions.— In the early part of spring many children die of 
croup, which is simply a common cold settling itself in 
the windpipe and spending all its force there. 

The very sound of a croupy cough is perfectly 
terrible to any mother who has ever heard it once. In 
any forty-eight hours it may carry a child from perfect 
health to the grave. Croup always originates Vli a cold, 
and in nine cases out of ten this cold is the result of 
exposure to dampness, either of the clothing or of the 
atmosphere, most generally the latter, and particularly 
that form of it which prevails in thawy v/eather, when 
snow is on the ground, or about sundown in the early 
spring season. At midday the bright sun lures the 
children out of doors, and having been pent up all 
winter a hilarity and a vigor of exercise are induced 
much beyond v/hat they have been accustomed to 
recently. They do not feel either tired or cold; but 
evening approaches, the cool of which condenses the 
moisture contained in the air, this rapidly abstracts the 
the heat from the body of the child, and with a doubly 
deleterious impression ; for not only is the body cooled 
too quickly, but by reason of the previous exercise it 
has been wearied and has lost a great deal of its power 
to resist cold, hence the child is chilled. Exercise has 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 87 

given it an unusual appetite, a hearty supper is taken, 
and in the course of the night, the reaction of the chill 
of the evening before sets in and gives fever ; the 
general system is oppressed, not only by the hearty 
meal; but by the inability of the stomach to digest it, 
and fever, oppression and exhaustion, all combined 
very easily sap av/ay the life of the child. 

The first night the child wakes with a cough, but 
it seems to pass off again. The child runs about the 
next day and is perfectly well, but the next night the 
symptoms are more decided, and the third night the 
child dies. All this might have been averted, if from 
the first night the child had been i^ept in a warm room, 
warmly clad, the bowels kept free, and nothing eaten 
but toast with tea, or gruel, or stewed fruits. 

Children should be kept warmly clad, at 
least until May, as in the depth of winter ; they should 
not be allowed to remain out of doors later than sun- 
down, when they should be brought into a warm room, 
their feet examined and made dry and warm, their 
suppers taken, and then sent to bed, not to go outside 
the doors until next morning after breakfast. 

Keep little children indoors the whole of all rainy, 
thawy, raw, windy days, and always until after break- 
fast and from and after one hour before sundown. 

Remedies.— Common sense dictates the instant 
sending for a physician in case of an attack of croup, 
but the moment a messenger is dispatched have three 
or four flannels, dip them in water as hot as your hand 



38 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

can bear and apply them successively to the throat of 
the child, so as to keep the throat hot all the time, so as 
to evaporate the matters which if retained cause the 
clogging up inside which soon stops the breath. Hot 
water should be constantly added to that into which the 
flannels are thrown, so as to keep it all the time hot. 
Keep the water from dribbling on the clothing of the 
child, and see to it that the feet are dry and warm. . 
Most likely the child will be out of danger before the 
physician arrives, and it is pleasant to turn over the 
responsibility on him. Loose cough, free breathing 
and a copious discharge of phlegm indicate relief and 
safety. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 39 



Colds and Pure Air. 

VALUABLE SUGGESTIONS. 

Catching: Cold is the rule, those who escape con- 
stitute the exception. Why should it be so ? The good 
I^ord doeth all things well, and he certainly has as little 
pleasure in making us uncomfortable, or punishing us 
with bad colds, as he has in the death of the sinner. It 
is not the good Lord, nor the good land and climate that 
he has given us, nor the weather with its copious rain- 
falls, for which we should be exceedingly glad, that 
are to be blamed for our indiscretions, but it is our own 
conduct that is at fault. For, as Bishop Heber has 
taught us to sing, of Ceylon's isle: 

"Where every prospect pleases, 
And only man is vile," 

So in reference to our complaining about suffering 
from the weather and the climate, the true source of 
complaint must be sought in ourselves. 

Result of Imprudence. — Climate is made the 
scapegoat of personal imprudence. If people will over- 
heat their houses or places of business in winter, if they 
choose to sit for an hour at a time, overcoated, shawled, 
hatted and india-rubbered, in one another's oven-like 
offices, and to plunge then, bathed in perspiration, into 
an open-air temperature below the freezing point, what 
right have they to charge the climate with their 



40 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

coughs, influenzas, sore throats and consumptions? 
Nobody could be pitched out of the tropic of Capricorn 
into the frigid zone two or three times a day without 
damage to his breathing apparatus. 

Practically, so far as difference of temperature is 
concerned, thousands of us pass through this sort of 
ordeal almost every winter's day. And yet sufferers 
from diphtheria, pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma, etc., 
generated by their own insane neglect of the most 
obvious sanitary rules, are taught to believe that they 
are the victims of climatic influences. 

Keep the thermometer down to 70° in your stores, 
counting houses, school rooms and domiciles from 
November till April ; never sit in rooms heated even 
to that moderate degree in your beaver cloaks, furs, and 
promenade headgear; warm yourselves with exercise 
instead of immoderate artificial heat ; and don't be 
afraid to let the outside air brush the inside of your 
dwellings, etc. , with its healthful wings, at least twice 
every twenty-four hours. Do this, all ye who are 
**subject" to coughs and colds that keep you barking 
and snuffing the winter through, with a deadly-lively 
glimpse of consumption in prospective, and we venture 
to say you will think better of this "terrible climate** 
next spring than you do at present. 

A normal condition of the skin is the chief protec- 

ion against a cold. Three-fourths of the sufferers from 

catarrhal pneumonia or chronic bronchitis are found to 

be in the habit of neglecting the skin. Their skin has 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 41 

become degraded, and is no longer a protective cover- 
ing for the body. 

The skin needs to be hardened by the use of the 
flesh-brush, the cold douche, the air bath, and by^ 
frequent change of underclothing. Active exercise 
needs to be added, to keep the tissues from clogging. 
The time to cure the patient is before he gets the cold. 

Do Not be Afraid to Co Out of Doors because 
it is a little colder than usual. The cold air will not 
hurt you, if you are not bathed in perspiration, and are 
properly protected and take exercise enough to keep 
the circulation active. On the contrary, it will purify 
your blood, strengthen your lungs, improve your diges- 
tion, aJBford a healthy, natural stimulus to your torpid 
circulation, and strengthen and energize your whole 
system. The injury which results from going into a 
cold atmosphere is occasioned by a lack of protection to 
some part of the body, exposure to draughts, or from 
breathing through the mouth. 

How long, oh, Lord ! how long before the people 
will learn that the person who bundles himself or her- 
self up in heavy clothing and thick bandages to escape 
colds and kindred inconveniences is the person who is 
most likely to catch cold and be troubled generally by 
the ills he attempts to escape ? In winter one often sees 
the foolish young man who will not go into the cold air 
unless his neck is muffled in a silk handkerchief, or 
shielded from the wind by the turned up coat collar. 
And that person always has a cold. Just about this 



42 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

time of the year, when colds are plentiful enough, 
youUl notice that the people who catch them are the 
people who are forever exhibiting the utmost anxiety 
lest they will catch them, and adopting elaborate pre- 
cautions against the dread disorder. 

Well, here is something that is true. The way to 
keep cold off is to strengthen those parts that are 
usually the seats of disturbance, and the way to 
strengthen those parts is by exposure. That sounds 
like bad advice, but it isn't. Do not be afraid to let 
the wind get a good crack at you, and let it strike 
often, and you will not have so many colds as the fellow 
that is always muffled. 

The people who are constantly bundled up, when 
they go out, are the ones that catch cold by the least 
breath of cool air striking them. They are all the time 
cooped up in a temperature of 70 to 80, without any 
ventilation. They keep their hats on in an overheated 
room, and don't remove their rubbers in the house, sit- 
ting for hours with them on. The least exposure gives 
them a cold. No wonder. 

Don't be afraid of a blizzard. Wrap up warmly 
and face it with a will. Keep moving, no matter how 
cold, walk a mile or two, and you will feel first rate 
when you get into the house. 

The immediate cause of a vast number of cases of 
disease and death is a "cold ;" it is that which fires a 
magazine of human ills; it is the spark to gunpowder. 
It was to a cold taken on a raw December day, that the 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 43 

great Washington owed his death. It was a common 
cold, aggravated by the injudicious advice of a friend 
which ushered in the final illness of Washington Irving. 
Almost any reader can trace the death of some dear 
friend to a ''little cold." 

Causes of Colds. — The chief causes of cold are 
two: ist, cooling oflf too soon after exercise ; 2d, get- 
ting thoroughly chilled while in a state of rest without 
having been overheated ; this latter originates dan- 
gerous pleurisies, fatal pneumonias (inflammation of the 
lungs,) and deadly fevers of the typhoid type. 

Persons in vigorous health do not take cold easily; 
they can do with impunity what would be fatal to the 
feeble afid infirm. Dyspeptic persons take cold readily, 
but they are not aware of it, because its force does not 
fall on the lungs, but on the liver through the skin, 
giving sick-headache ; and close questioning will soon 
develop the fact of some unusual bodily effort, followed 
by cooling off rapidly. 

A little attention would avert a vast amount of 
human sufferings in these regards. Sedentary persons, 
invalids, and those in feeble health, should go directly 
to a fire after all forms of exercise, and keep all the gar- 
ments on for a few minutes ; or, if in warm weather, to 
a closed apartment, and, if any thing, throw on an 
additional covering. When no appreciable moisture is 
found on the forehead, the outer-door garments may be 
removed. The great rule is, cool off very slowly, 



44 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

always, after the body has in any manner been heated 
beyond its ordinary temperature. 

Neglecting- Colds. — Every intelligent physician 
knows that the best possible method of promptly cur- 
ing a cold is, that the very day in which it is observed 
to have been taken, the patient should cease abso- 
lutely from eating a particle for twenty-four or forty- 
eight hours, and should be strictly confined to a warm 
room, or be covered up well in bed, taking freely hot 
drinks. It is also in the experience of every observant 
person, that when the cold is once taken, very slight 
causes indeed, increase it. The expression, * 'It is noth- 
ing but a cold, ' ' conveys a practical falsity of the most 
pernicious character, because an experienced' medical 
practitioner feels that it is impossible to tell in any given 
case, where a cold will end ; hence, and when highly 
valuable lives are at stake, his solicitudes appear some- 
times to others to verge on folly or ignorance. 

The symptoms of cold in a patient are chills, with- 
out lowering of the temperature, however. The tem- 
perature will often rise two degrees while the patient is 
undergoing a chill. Colds frequently result from 
wearing slippers and thin stockings. No convalescent 
patient should be thinly clad about the extremities. 
They all should wear woolen underclothes, because 
wool absorbs moisture, which is condensed in the fibers 
of the cloth, and so heat is returned to the body again. 
Everybody should wear woolen underclothes through 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 45 

the winter and many invalids should never leave them 
off 

A severe cold, and perhaps an attack of pneumonia, 
may be prevented if premonitory symptoms are heeded. 
A chilly sensation along the spinal column, a cold 
clammy feeling across the chest, are sure indications 
that a severe cold is trying to settle in the system. 

Colds are Caught more frequently by being in 
rooms, of which the temperature is too high, than where 
it is not high enough. Both are bad, but the former 
is the greater evil. Halls, Sunday-school rooms, 
churches, and crowded apartments, in general, are of- 
ten too warm. Seventy degrees is sufficiently warm 
for any one, better have it a few degrees lower than 
higher. 

In passing from a warm room inio the open air the 
body should be kept as nearly as possible at the same 
temperature, either by active exercise, or by putting on 
extra clothing. School children should be taught this 
by every teacher. To let them run out from a heated 
room, with no extra clothing on, and heads uncovered 
is suicidal. The mouth should be kept tightly shut in 
passing from a warm room into cold air. 

Worse than Herod. — Children are killed by the 
hundreds of thousands every year by parents and 
teachers. Herod killed several hundred children, in 
trying to find the babe of Bethlehem, nineteen centuries 
ago. We denounce him as a great sinner and yet the 
American people who kill off their children by the 



^ 



46 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 

scores of thousands annually are saints and go to 
churcli and Sunday school, and pray most earnestly, 
and sing the songs of Zion most pathetically. Children 
are sent to school with feeble, nervous constitutions at 
the age of six, when they ought to be out in the open 
air, romping and playing and getting all the health 
they can. They should not be confined to school a 
single day, before they are eight or nine. They are 
urged on by ambitious parents and teachers, to wade 
through problems in arithmetic and even grammar 
before they are ten, when they should not have any- 
thing but oral exercises and reading. These children, 
hot-house plants, forced in their mental growth, soon 
droop, fail in health and die, while the dull ones, who 
have their out-door amusement and skipped school, 
become the useful men and women, because they have 
the bodily health and vigor. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. ' 47 



How to Avoid Colds, 

The old and the young alike are subject to colds at 
all times and places, and a few words on how to avoid 
colds from the best medical authorities, and founded on 
sound philosophy are in place. 

Physiologists have said that if a few drops of the 
blandest fluid of nature are injected into a blood vessel 
against the current, death is an instantaneous result. 

Millions of canals or tubes from the inner portion 
of the body, open their little mouths at the surface, and 
through these channels, as ceaseless as the flow of time, 
a fluid containing the wastes and impurities of the 
system is passing outwards, and is emptied out on the 
skin ; ordinarily, it is so attenuated, so near like the air, 
that it can not be seen with the naked eve, but ex- 
traordinarily, under the influence of increased natural 
or artificial heat, as from exercise or fire, this fluid is 
more profuse, and is seen and known as ' * the sweat of 
the brow" — perspiration. 

This fluid must have exit or we die in a few hours. 
If it does not have vent at the surface of the body, it 
must have some internal outlet. Nature abhors shocks 
as she does a vacuum. Heat distends the mouths of 
these ducts, and promotes a larger and more rapid flow 
of the contained fluid ; on the other hand, cold contracts 
them, and the fluid is at first arrested, dams up and re- 



48 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

bounds. If the purest warm milk,* injected against the 
current of the blood, kills in a moment, not from any- 
chemical quality, but from the force against the natural 
current, there need be no surprise at the ill effects of 
suddenly closing the mouths of millions of tubes at the 
same instant, causing a violence at every pin-head sur- 
face of the body. If these mouths are gradually closed, 
nature has time to adapt herself to the circumstances by 
opening her channels into the great internal * 'water- 
ways ' ^ of the body, and no harm follows. Hence the 
safety of cooling off slowly after exercise or being in a 
heated apartment, and the danger of cooling off rapidly, 
under the same circumstances, familiarly known by the 
expression '' checking the perspiration.*' 

The result of closing the pores of the skin is various 
according to the direction the shock takes, and this is 
always to the weakest part ; in the little child it is to 
the throat, and there is croup or diphtheria ; to the 
adult it is to the head, giving catarrh in the head, or 
running of the nose ; to the lungs, giving a bad cold, 
or, if very violent, causing pneumonia or inflammation 
of the lungs themselves ; or pleurisy, inflammation of 
the covering of the lungs ; to the bowels causing profuse 
and sudden diarrhoea, or to the covering of the bowels, 
inducing that rapid and (often) fatal malady known as 
peritoneal inflammation ; if the current is determined to 
the liver, there is obstinate constipation, or bilious fever, 
or sick headache. Hence a '*cold'' is known by a 
cough, when perspiration is driven inward, and is di- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 49 

rected to the lungs ; by pleurisy, when to the lining of 
the lungs ; by a sick headache or bilious fever, when to 
the liver, etc. ; diarrhoea or constipation when to the 
bowels and liver. 

To avoid bad colds, then it is only necessary to 
avoid closing the pores of the skin, either rapidly, by 
checking perspiration, or slowly, by remaining still 
until the body is thoroughly chilled, that is, until the 
pores are nearly or entirely closed by inaction in a cold 
atmosphere or room. In the matter of health, these 
suggestions are of incalculable importance. 

* * If a cold is serious, a physician should be called. 
The first thing to do is to draw the excess of blood from 
the affected part by soaking the feet in hot water. The 
action of the skin can be restored and the blood brought 
back by a hot bath, *wet pack,' nitre, or Dover's pow- 
ders. To eliminate the watery element from the blood 
give a laxative. ' ' 

How to Cure a Cold. — The moment a man is satis- 
fied he has taken cold, let him do three things : 

First, eat nothing; second, go to bed, cover up 
warm in a warm room ; third, drink as much cold water 
as he can, or as he wants, or as much hot herb-tea as he 
can ; and in three cases out of four he will be almost 
well in thirty-six hours. 

If he dofes nothing for his cold for forty-eight 
hours after the cough commences, there is nothing that 
he can swallow that will, by any possibility, arrest the 
cold, for, with such a start, it will run its course of 



50 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

about a fortnight in spite of all that can be done, and 
what is swallowed in the mean time in the way of food, 
is a hindrance and not good. 

* * Feed a cold and starve a fever " is a mischievous 
fallacy. — A cold always brings a fever ; and a cold never 
begins to get well until the fever subsides ; but every 
mouthful swallowed is that much to feed the fever ; and 
but for the fact, that as soon as a cold is fairly started, 
nature, in a kind of desperation, steps in and takes away 
the appetite, the commonest cold would be followed by 
very serious results, and in frail people would be always 
fatal. 

These things being so, the very fact of waiting 
forty- eight hours gives time for the cold to fix itself in 
the system ; for a cold does not usually cause cough until 
a day or two has passed, and then waiting two days 
longer gives it the fullest chance to do its work before 
any thing at all is done. 

The following is the advice, given by a prominent 
doctor, for getting rid of a cold : 

Good Advice. — When the first symptoms manifest 
themselves is the time for action, and this should consist 
of a hot mustard foot-bath before going to bed and a hot 
draught of milk. The covering of the body should be 
linen and wool, the former in the way of the sheet and 
the latter in the blanket. 

No drug can nor will do the service of preventive 
measures. The very best preventive of cold is cold 
water. Bathe the neck and chest every morning with 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 



cold water, and rub dry with a rough towel until the 
flesh is of a pink hue. A cold sponging (all over the 
body) is better, but often too little spare time in the 
morning forbids such a luxury. Many little ones may 
be saved from croup if attention be given to the cold 
sponging. 

Simple Remedies. — No attempt to get up an ac- 
tive sweating should be made. The foot-bath and the 
warm drink will give a sense of warmth and facilitate 
the natural excretion of m^aterials which should pass 
away by the skin, and any effort to aggravate this will 
be not only superfluous, but harmful. 

The blanket should never be worn next to the 
night robe, and should not be so thick as to confine the 
air next to the body. It is, indeed, often advisable to 
lighten the covering of the feet, and to preserve a cer- 
tain amount of weight over the loins, and to have the 
shoulders protected from the external surroundings in 
general. 

The last measure is not to be underrated ; a sensi- 
tive lung carries with it susceptibility to take to itself 
everything that could possibly affect it to its detriment. 
Ivung diseases belong to sensitive persons, and may or 
may not be the sequence of a ^' cold." The majority of 
them, however, can be traced to imprudence in dress 
and exposure. Pneumonia, pleurisy and consumption 
are partners of carelessness in the dressing of the chest 
and back, and ** colds," which might stop at the throat 
by a little prudence, are their apprentices. 



:/ 



52 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

Avoid too much Medicine. — If you have uncon- 
sciously contracted a cold and want to get relief from it, 
you must, in the first place, avoid too much medication. 
A properly clad skin and a clear digestion ought to 
shorten the life of a '^cold.'^ If a little comfort can be 
secured by wearing a light covering on the head during 
indoor hours it should be respected. 

Ventilation of apartments comes in for a slight 
amount of attention, and it should be simply sufficient 
to furnish fresh air and not to produce currents which 
can be appreciated. Nothing is more fallacious than 
the belief that health is promoted and life prolonged by 
air in excess, and this is proved by tombstones. 

Don't take Cold. — Best of all, avoid taking a 
cold. Do not expose yourself Hold on to flannels and 
underwear. Avoid getting chilled. Change damp 
clothing at once to dry. Keep your feet warm and dry. 
Do not check prespiration by suddenly cooling. Keep 
out of draughts. Keep your mouth shut when you go 
out of doors, and especially do not think because we 
have a few warm days, that now you can act as in sum- 
mer, stick to your fires, your clothing, and your cold 
weather habits, a little longer. 

You say, "that is all talk.'^ "I can't do it," a 
person canH take care of himself! Can't observe the 
laws of health 1 No, but you can afford to pay a $50 
doctor bill. You can afford to stay in the house and in 
bed a month or two when you are sick. You can af- 
ford to die prematurely on account of utter disregard of 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 53 

God's laws. All these you can do, because you will be 
compelled, when you refuse to exercise your common 
sense. But which is better ? Sapienti sat 

Don*t Neglect a Cold. — Ah ! my friend, you 
should not think lightly of a cold, with the many ex- 
amples and warnings constantly staring you in the face 
of how colds lead to serious consequences. A cold is a 
fever, and a fever is a serious matter. It may, and it 
may not pass off as easily as you hope. George Wash- 
ington, Chief Justice Waite, Roscoe Conkling and mul- 
titudes of others made light of a cold, but it did not of 
them. 

If you have caught a cold, do not delay a single 
hour to rid yourself of it. I^et no business, no engage- 
ment, nothing whatever prevent you from giving it at- 
tention. DonU for a moment suppose that you can 
force yourself that you are an exception to the human 
family, and that the Lord will perform a miracle for 
you. One of your first duties is health. God has said 
*'Thou shalt not kill," and that means, among other 
duties, **get rid of your cold at once.'* It is better to 
remain in bed one day, than go through a sixty days' 
siege of fever. The pores of your skin are closed, steam 
open, and induce perspiration at once, so that your bod- 
ily functions can go on again in the usual way. 



64 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES 



Coughs. 

A Cough is Nature's Safety Valve. — ^As long as 
a person can cough and expectorate he will not die. Con- 
sumptives often cough almost incessantly. As long as 
they can do so they don't die. If, however, the cough 
subsides, they die in a few days, as now the matter 
which was brought up by coughing fills the lungs, the 
air being prevented from entering the small vessels, the 
blood is no longer purified and death ensues. Hence, 
it is that the last stages of consumption are so deceptive, 
the patient believing that he is much better, because his 
cough is stopped, when he is really in the greatest dan- 
ger. The folly of taking something to stop the cough 
is, hence, apparent. If anything is taken it should be 
something to promote coughing, so that the lungs may 
be cleared of the matter in them. 

Coughing at Night. — Healthy persons are some- 
times troubled with coughing at night. They wake up 
with a violent cough and are prevented from falling 
asleep again for a long while. This coughing is caused 
by lying with arms uncovered, thus cooling the skin, 
contracting the pores, and driving in upon the lungs 
that which oppresses and irritates. This kind of cough 
often requires only the covering up of the arms till they 
become warm. To take something for stopping a 
cough of this kind is not only a great folly, but highly 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 55 

injurious to health. Paregoric, laudanum, trochees, 
drops, lozenges, etc. , will ease the coughing, stop it en- 
tirely, but to the great injury of health, possibly, invit- 
ing other diseases, such as pleurisy, pneumonia and 
dangerous hemorrhages. It is like painting one's face 
to hide the dirt, instead of washing it clean. The ano- 
dyne, trochee, or tablet only smothers the cough. 

Children's Coughs. — Persons, particularly child- 
ren, rushing out of a heated room, filled with a vitiated 
atmosphere, such as our school rooms often are, when 
overcrowded, are liable to contract a cold, and a cough- 
ing spell is the result. A troublesome cough sticks to 
them for months, they being unable to shake it off. 
The best thing is never to be guilty of so unwise a prac- 
tice, and it is particularly the teacher's duty to use every 
honorable means of preventing it. But, when once a 
cough has settled itself on the system, it is not to be 
cured by the use of cough medicines and patent prepar- 
ations. These contain opium, and though they may 
plaster over and relieve for a short time, they only en- 
ervate the system, and protract the seige which it wages 
against the enemy. Work off the cold thus contracted, 
by active exercise, which induces perspiration, and 
causes the pores to open, so that the impurities may be 
thrown off. The cough will then stop of itself. 

Cold Feet especially on retiring in a cold room, in 
a cold bed, produce coughing in a short time. Never 
go to bed with cold, clammy feet, nor allow a child to 
sit in the school room with damp stockings and cold 



I 



56 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

feet. If you do, a serious cough and cold will be the 
result in less than twenty- four hours, and not only a 
cough, but some other serious illness. It is sheer sui- 
cide to permit this. 

The croupy cough of children must be especially 
watched. When it is observed in school, the child 
should be at once sent home, and the attention of the 
parent called to it. When at home it should be put to 
bed and wrapped up warm. Death may come within 
forty-eight hours, if the cough is not attended to. Call 
a physician, at once. 




COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES 57 



The Deadly Cold Bed. 

"The Spare Room."— If trustworthy statistics 
could be had of the number of persons who die every 
year, or become permanently diseased from sleeping in 
damp or cold beds, they would probably be astonishing 
and appalling. It is a peril that constantly besets trav- 
eling men, and if they are wise, they will invariably in- 
sist on having their beds aired and dried, even at the 
risk of causing much trouble to their landlords. But 
this peril resides in the home, and the cold ** spare 
room'* has slain its thousands of hapless guests, and 
will go on with its slaughter till people learn wisdom. 
Not only the guest but the family often suffer the pen- 
alty of sleeping in cold rooms and chilling their bodies 
at a time when they need all their bodily heat, by get- 
ting between cold sheets. Even in warm, summer 
weather, a cold, damp bed will get in its deadly work. 
It is a needless peril, and the neglect to provide dry 
rooms and beds has in it the elements of murder and 
suicide. It is better to sleep in one's clothes than to run 
the risk of taking a death cold in the damp bed. This 
precaution should be taken when you have to use a bed 
the owner of which does not know its danger. Of course 
you will not be guilty of inflicting any such barbarism 
on any of your guests. 



68 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 



Catarrh. 

There are several distinct forms of catarrh, which may 
be classed under two general heads, the dry or non-dis- 
charging, and the mucous or flowing catarrh, of which 
the latter is by far the more prevalent. 

A Cold in the Head, strictly speaking, is a ca- 
tarrh, and if suffered to run its course without interrup- 
tion, may assume all the worst features of this trouble- 
some disease, and finally become so thoroughly seated 
as to occasion no little difficulty in its dislodgment. It 
first attacks the mucous membrane of the nasal aper- 
tures, inflaming it and causing a continuous watery 
flow, thence extending downward to the air passage 
leading to the chest, causing constant irritation, and 
finally settles upon the lungs with a deadly grip. Its 
worst symptoms are attached with headache, impaired 
hearing, sight and memory, loss of appetite and general 
debility. We have known cases where the loss of smell 
as well as taste were attributed to this cause. 

Many persons have a vague notion what nasal ca- 
tarrh is. Some think that the ordinary running from 
the nose in a case of cold is nasal catarrh. In a certain 
sense, in the original sense of the word it is. Catarrh 
is derived from the Greek Kata^ down, and Rhea^ to 
run, just as diarrhea is from Dia^ through, and Rhea^ to 
run. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 59 

Different Kinds of Catarrh. — Catarrli is a name 
given by the Greeks to ailments whicli throw off fluids 
in unnatural quantities ; it means a * ' flowing from. ' ' 
These catarrhs are always originated by a cold taken in 
some way ; and upon whatever part of the system the 
cold ** falls," it is called a catarrh of that part. Hence, 
** catarrh of the head" when the eyes water a great 
deal ; ** nasal" catarrh when the ** nose runs;" ** catarrh 
of the chest" when a cold settles on the lungs and a 
large expectoration follows. Some persons who have 
* * weak bowels ' ' always have diarrhea ; thin, watery, 
light-colored passages, or catarrh of the bowels, when a 
cold is taken. 

The Action of a Catarrh is curative, and should be 
let alone, for it is nature's effort to carry off the disease ; 
to wash it away as it were. If nature were only left to 
herself in these cases, an incredible amount of suffering 
would be prevented, especially if nothing were eaten 
until relieved but bread and water ; and if two or three 
hours in the forenoon and afternoon were spent in the 
open air, in bodily activities sufficient to promote and 
keep up a very gentle perspiration. But when there is 
a cough, or a troublesome running at the nose, or a wa- 
tering of the eyes, with a fullness about the head and all 
over the body, indicating that a general cold has been 
taken, there is, almost a mama for ^ ' taking something. " 
If the person has some medical knowledge, and even 
a small amount of common-sense, leading him to wait 
on nature, while he endeavors to aid her as just indi- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 

cated, every second person he meets, exclaims, **Wliy 
don't you do something for it?'' and he is brave indeed 
who resists steadfastly to the end. 

Dangerous Remedies. — A lady had a trouble- 
some itching and running of the nose, and being advised 
to snuff up cold water freely, she did so and was 
^' cured" in a day ; but in twenty-four hours she nearly 
died of asthma ; for, although the ** flowing" from the 
nose was checked, the disease fell upon the lungs ; na- 
ture would have a vent somewhere. 

A gentleman complained of a cold in the head, 
with sick headache; some one advised him to have 
buckets of cold water poured on top of his head, which 
was followed by a welcome relief ; the next day he com- 
plained of a sore throat, which troubled him as long as 
he lived. 

A gentleman had a cold in the head which affected 
his hearing ; it was ignorantly tampered with, and ap- 
parently cured ; but the eyes began to complain shortly 
after, to remedy which he spent two years and a thou- 
sand dollars under the most eminent Allopathic and 
Water-Cures, with no efficient result ; and his eyes are 
as troublesome to-day as they were some ten years ago. 
All ** Sowings," ** runnings," etc., are the result of 
what, in common parlance, is a ''humor in the blood," 
and nature is endeavoring to ''run it off," but our reck- 
less and ignorant interferences thwart her in her efforts, 
and bring on greater calamities. 

Use Care in Stopping Diarrhea. — In the diar- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 61 

rhea of children, summer complaints, etc., which so 
often arise from the colds settling on the bowels, pare- 
goric is given, and ** soothing syrups,'* (in all cases 
made of molasses and laudanum, never made without 
sugar and opium.) The great effort of ignorance is to 
**stop the diarrhea.'' This is done ; the parents are 
charmed, write out a certificate in great gratitude ; this 
is published in the morning papers of the same week, 
as also in another column the death of the * 'cured" 
child of " convulsions " or " water on the brain." 

The cough of consumption, and the large amount 
of glairy or multi-colored "matter" discharged from 
the lungs in bronchitis, are the curative ''flowings," 
catarrhs of nature, and the checking of them by cough- 
drops, lozenges, troches, syrups, snuffs, etc., always^ 
AIRWAYS, ALWAYS makes death more certain, more 
speedy and more dreadful. In all catarrhs, in all Sow- 
ings, keep the bowels free, keep up a very general per- 
spiration, and eat but very little for forty-eight hours, 
and if not better send for a respectable physician. An- 
nual sneezings and nose runnings are of this nature, 
preventable by previous judicious depletions. 

In all catarrhs, chronic or acute, long or short, a 
wise physician will do nothing to stop or repress but 
will use means to cause a greater activit}^ of the liver, 
and prescribe an unstimulating and cooling diet, 
warmth and judicious exercise. 

For ourselves we would give physic a wide berth. 
If we had a '* flowing from," a catarrh, a cold, all of 



I 



62 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

wliicli mean precisely the same thing in nature and es- 
sence, we would let it flow, and thus have the system 
relieved of an enemy, whose presence it will not toler- 
ate. But there are three other things which may be 
done to very great advantage, because they would expe- 
dite the cure. 

Common Sense Remedies. — i. Keep the body, 
especially the feet, very comfortably warm by every 
available means. 

2. Take a good deal of exercise in the open air, 
to the extent of keeping up a very slight perspiration 
for several hours during the twenty- four. 

3. I/ive on light, loosening, cooling food — moder- 
ate amounts — such as water-gruel, crust of bread, 
stewed fruits, ripe berries, and nothing else, until en- 
tirely well. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 63 



Cholera. 

Asiatic Cholera, as first known in this country in 
1832 and '33, is chiefly a disease prevailing in warm 
weather, or rather in a warm atmosphere, for it can be 
created at any season, and in the coldest latitudes, by 
combining the proper degrees of the three essential 
requisites, to wit, moisture, vegetable decay, and a reg- 
ular heat, exceeding eighty degrees. The great and 
distinguishing feature of cholera is a copious, frequent, 
and painless discharge from the bowels of a substance 
almost as thin as water, with a whitish tinge, as if rice 
had been washed in it, or as if a little milk had been 
dropped in it. When this occurs the patient soon be- 
gins to perspire profusely, the skin assumes a leaden 
hue and shrivels up, the nails become blue, insufferable 
cramps come on, and the victim's death occurs in a few 
hours with the most perfect calmness, in the fullest pos- 
session of all the faculties, and absolute freedom from 
every pain. 

Important about Cholera. — Three things ought 
to be known, in reference to cholera, by every human 
being : 

First . The writer has never known a case in 
which it was not preceded, for one, two, or more days, 
by the bowels acting tjyice, or oftener, in every twenty- 
four hours ; universally styled * ' the premonitory symp- 
toms.'' 



64 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

Second : A cure is impossible under any conceiv- 
able circumstances, without absolute quietude of body, 
on a bed, for days together ; the time of confinement 
being shortened, in proportion to the promptitude with 
which the quietude is secured, after the first action of 
the bowels has taken place, which gives a feeling of 
tiredness, and, on sitting down, a sensation of rest and 
satisfaction. 

Third : When the patient ceases to urinate he be- 
gins to die, and its resumption is a certain index of re- 
covering health, always and infallibly. 

One of the usual attendants of an attack of cholera 
is an unconquerable tendency to vomit. The very in- 
stant anything reaches the stomach, even if it is but 
cold water, it is ejected ; the mildest food meets the 
same fate in such cases, much less will medicine find a 
lodgment, except one, and that it is impossible to vomit 
up if it once reaches its destination ; that medicine has 
no taste, it is small in bulk, will retain its virtues for a 
quarter of a century, as the writer knows by personal 
experience and repeated observation. Unless it is in 
the very last stages, it is believed capable of arresting 
the disease nine cases out of ten — a pill made up of ten 
grains of calomel with a little gum- water ; if the symp- 
toms do not abate in two hours, double the dose, and let 
it work itself off ; do nothing else, but let the patient be 
quiet and eat all the ice he may want. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 65 



Cholera Infantum. 

Cholera Infantum (summer complaint) is the 
Herod of large American cities in this latitude during 
the summer season. In the city of Philadelphia it 
causes about one-twentieth of all the deaths for the en- 
tire year, and one-sixth of all the deaths of infants un- 
der two years of age ; and this wholesale destruction of 
infant life takes place in the short space of two months. 
Continued high temperature, night and day, appears to 
be its essential cause. It is important, therefore, first 
to keep the child cool, and secondly, to keep its food 
(milk) cool. Infants at the breast are much less liable 
to be attacked than those brought up by hand. There- 
fore, nurse the baby through the second summer if pos- 
sible. To accomplish the first object, allow the baby to 
drink freely of cool, not excessively cold, water ; bathe 
it frequently in cool or lukewarm water two or three 
times a day if the thermometer is above 90°; keep it in 
the open air in the shade ; take it into the country or 
out on the water as often as possible. I^et it wear a 
very thin flannel undershirt, or if not this a flannel 
bellyband. 

To accomplish the second, get your milk from a 
dairy where it is kept on ice, keep as little on hand as 
possible — and keep it on ice if possible. As soon as 
you get it, boil it for a few minutes and then add a ta- 



66 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

' blespoonful of lime water to every pint. If the child is 
siezed suddenly with diarrhoea, stop its milk at once, 
and feed it on raw white of egg^ gelatine, barley water, 
and meat or chicken broth ; and do not give it milk 
again until the diarrhoea has stopped. If possible go 
away with it to the country at once, or, if you live in 
the country, go to the mountains. Change of air has 
saved thousands of children's lives in this disease. 
Never try to treat looseness of the bowels in a baby in 
hot weather yourself, but send at once for a doctor. 



Cholera Morbus. 

All of these well-known diseases occur principally 
during the summer and autumn. 

Cholera morbus is caused by improper fcod and 
suddenly chilling of the body after exposure to great 
heat. Certain substances will produce it in certain per- 
sons, such, for instance, as veal, raw milk taken with 
fish, or shellfish, and all dishes cooked with milk, such 
as rice pudding, cream puffs, and even ice cream wken 
kept too long. Unripe and overripe fruit, especially if 
taken with large draughts of ice-water, will also cause 
it. But sound, ripe fruit is a natural food in hot 
weather, and wholesome. Avoid becoming chilled dur- 
ing sleep. In a climate as changeable as ours, a light 
blanket should always be at hand, to be drawn up in 
case it suddenly becomes cold during the night. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 67 



Constipation. 

Of Great Importance. — Next to sleeping, the 
item of most universal application is the proper regula- 
tion of the bowels. We will feel a thousand times re- 
paid for writing this article, if every mother who reads 
it will begin, without a day's delay, to impress upon 
the mind of every child she has, from four years old and 
upward, that the omission to go to the privy every day, 
will never fail to accompany or precede nine-tenths of 
all the sickness of old and young. 

Do not Trifle with Nature. — In four cases out of 
five, the foundations of life-long ailments, which embitter 
the whole existence, are laid in habits of constipation 
originating in the school-room — oftener, perhaps, in a 
late breakfast, which makes it necessary to hurry off to 
school, and in the excitement nature's calls are unno- 
ticed, and may remain so until school is called, and 
time has been allowed for all to settle down quietly at 
their lessons. But then a recitation is called ; then the 
child ''must" wait until the lesson is over ; ajfter that 
the teacher may be too busy ; next the child begins to 
calculate that it will soon be time for dismission. Thus, 
in one way and another, nature is baffled, but not with 
impunity ; for just precisely in this or similar ways, 
habits of constipation commence in multitudes, old and 
young, every day, paving the way for some of the most 



68 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

protracted, some of the most troublesome, some of the 
most painful ailments known to man. In the earlier 
stages, and most commonly, there is a complaint of cold 
feet, of headache, of chilliness, of want of appetite, of 
no inclination for breakfast of mornings, of dullness, of 
want of vigor, vivacity, animation ; and the child goes 
off to school, or the adult to business, '' more dead than 
alive, ' ' and all creation looks as blue as indigo. The 
child is fickle, fretful, peevish ; the man sullen and 
groany ; the woman — my stars ! how she does make ev- 
ery body stand about ! The servants huddle together in 
the kitchen, the children will be as mute as mice, and 
" father, *' if he has a mite of sense, will quietly edge 
himself off into all out-doors. If breakfast be taken at 
seven o^ clock, or at seven and a half, during January 
and February, there need be no hurry for school, and 
there will be that leisure which allows of deliberate at- 
tention to nature's admonitions. 

It is well worth while to be at very great pains to 
guard our children against falling into habits of consti- 
pation, when it is known' that such habits lead to dys- 
ppepsia iles, fistula, bilious colic, sick headache, and 
that * ' nervousnes, or neuralgia ' ' which make life in- 
tolerable to so many wives and daughters. 

Remedies. — Hot water taken freely half an hour 
before bedtime is the best cathartic possible in the case 
of constipation, while it has a most soothing effect upon 
the stomach and bowels. 

Fever and restlessness in children is frequently 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

caused by indigestion. If you find the skin of the little 
one hot and dry, remember, if you can, what she ate for 
supper. Give the child a warm bath, then give it a cup 
half full of warm water to drink. In a few minutes the 
undigested food will be thrown off the stomach, and the 
child will soon be sleeping soundly. A dose of magne- 
sia, half a teaspoonful, given in the morning before 
breakfast, will probably restore to the child its usual 
health, but, should fever and nausea continue during 
the day following the attack, send for a physician. 

Watch the Children. — Constipation, Dyspepsia, 
and Brain-Fever are the three great dangers of children 
at school. When a child gets to pass a day or two 
without an action of the bowels, it becomes at once ex- 
posed to every disease that is abroad ; if there is any 
prevalent sickness whatever, a constipated child is sure 
to suffer from it ; while it takes cold from the slightest of 
all causes, and thus becomes tinder for diphtheria, scar- 
let fever, and putrid sore-throat. Hence, breakfast 
should be taken early, long enough before half past eight 
o'clock to allow them to have abundant time to go to 
the privy ; and to promote this, they should be required 
to repair to the family-room or parlor, from the break- 
fast table ; because by the mind being composed, the 
call of nature is more certainly noticed. It is a crimi- 
nal neglect, not to clearly explain to each child, the in- 
evitable ill results and danger to life, which attend 
going over twenty-four hours, without an evacuation 
of the bowels. 



70 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 



Contagion. 

Do not take Chances. — It is all very well for 
children to attend school regularly and strive to be pres- 
ent at every session, but the teachers bid too high for 
this, and encourage them to go to school when there is 
danger in doing so alike for themselves and mates. To 
be absent from school, except in the most urgent cases, 
is considered a matter of reproach. In consequence, 
children are often permitted to attend when they should 
be at home and in bed. This is certainly wrong. It 
is, of course, well to stimulate in children a desire to 
make the most of their opportunities and to be in school 
every day when they properly can do so, but there is a 
reasonable limit, and harm is likely to result if it is 
passed. Parents should always give due heed to their 
children's complaints, and if they are at all ailing they 
should be kept from school until well. During the 
commencing stage of contagious diseases the symptoms 
are not defined, and do not indicate the nature of the 
trouble coming on. And oftentimes they are less severe 
in character than those which are present in simple 
transitory disturbances. It is true, also, that in the first 
stage of some of the most fatal contagious diseases the 
victims are a menace to all whom they encounter, 
capable as they are of transmitting the disease poisons 
to them. As, for instance, a child is coming down with 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 71 

scarlet-fever. He has a little sore throat ; his appetite is 
poor, or gone altogether ; and he appears rather weak 
and languid. Most mothers would assume that he had 
caught a little cold, and they would not consider him 
sick enough to remain away from school. And yet, 
were he to attend he would be likely to infect some of 
his mates, for his disease is often contagious before the 
eruption is out enough to clearly indicate its nature. 
Teachers as well as parents, have a grave responsibility 
in this matter of disease. They should be closely ob- 
servant ; and children who appear languid and other- 
wise ailing, should be sent home at once, and their pa- 
rents informed of the reason. Only by this exceeding 
care, without '^taking any chances,'* can parents and 
teachers do their whole duty toward preventing the 
spread of contagious diseases in schools. 




72 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Consumption. 

A Fearful Disease. — It is estimated that one per- 
son of every seven dies of consumption. How import- 
ant, this being so, that every person should know some- 
thing of the nature, cause and prevention of this 
disease, cure there being none, after it has advanced to 
a certain stage. In consumption the whole man is 
diseased, every drop of his blood is on fire. When all 
the fat and flesh are consumed (consumep— -tion), 
(Schwindsucht\ and there is no more oil to feed the 
flame, then the consumptive l^egins to freeze. Cold 
fingers, cold feet, until the heart is chilled, and death 
ensues. The forenoon brings a shivering chill, the 
after part of the day, a burning fever, and the night a 
cold, clammy drenching sweat. As soon as the poor, 
wasted, wearied body is laid in the bed, the cough 
begins, and it continues through the weary hours of 
the night, until exhausted, the patient falls into a 
troubled sleep. As long as he can cough he will not 
die, coughing is nature^ s safety valve, but when once 
the cough stops, when the consumptive becomes too 
weak to expectorate, he dies. 

Symptoms. — Though there is consumption of the 
throat, bronchitis, and of the bowels, yet consumption 
of the lungs is usually meant, when the disease is spoken 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 73 

of. A cough, pale face, wasted flesh, stooping frame, 
slow and careful walk, large round eyes, a waxen coun- 
tenance is the picture of a consumptive. In consump- 
tion the whole person is diseased, every drop of blood 
is on fire. This ceaseless feaver burns out life. When 
all the fat and flesh are consumed, and there is no more 
oil, no carbon to feed the flame, nothing but skin and 
bone, the tendon and ligament, and strings, the patient 
begins to freeze. The cold chill of death creeps higher, 
until from cold hands and feet, the heart itself begins to 
chill, and death ensues. Blood spitting is one of the 
frightening accompaniments of consumption, and, yet 
those who do spit blood live longer by months and years, 
had not this symptom been present, since every time 
this happens the blood-vessels are unloaded, and, hence, 
the tubercles are diminished, and the fewer the tubercles, 
the greater is the hope of cure. Not one of a hundred 
thousand who spit blood bleed to death. The very 
moment blood- spitting is first observed not a single hour 
should be lost, a physician at once consulted, and in 
three cases out of four a permanent cure may be efiected. 
Consumption may be cured. — Ofttimes even, 
with care, a consumptive lives to become an old man. 
The friend and acquaintance of the author's childhood 
days, John Narrigong, of Richlandtown, Buck Co., Pa., 
was pronounced incurable by physicians, and told to 
drink milk freely and by next spring he would die. He 
lived yet forty years subsequently, and died at the age 
of seventy-five. 



74 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

About Feebleness. — Feebleness does not neces- 
sarily cause consumption. The feeble feel the necessity 
of taking care of themselves and strengthening their 
bodies, and hence, the stout, robust and strong some- 
times soonest fall victims to this disease. The author 
of this book was a small, puny boy, and it was pro- 
phesied by many, who knew him as such, that he would 
never live to see maturity, especially as his two uncles 
had died of consumption before they were twenty-one. 
He was convinced of the fact that he must do or die. 
He did. He plowed, he mowed, he spread manure, he 
chopped and sawed v/ood, *'hollored," bellowed, and 
did a thousand things to develop and strengthen his 
body, and to-day, on the other side of fifty, he is * ' hale 
and hearty," with healthy lungs, while a score of his 
strong youthful companions fill consumptives' graves. 

Sleeping in close rooms, insufficient food or 
clothing, being in damp, dark apartments, the want of 
full breathing give birth to consumption, so does the 
want of pure blood. Whatever has a debilitating eflfect 
on the body, whether of a mental, moral or physical 
nature, is the fruitful source of consumption. 

The best place for studying, sleeping- and 
spending your time, is in a high, dry, well lighted, 
well ventilated room. Near the earth, on the ground 
floor, or under the ground, the air is cold, raw, impure. 
In second, third, or fourth story rooms, the air is drier, 
purer, more rarified and more health-giving. The 
** study '' of the clergyman, the "ofiice" of the physi- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 75 

cian and the lawyer, tlie ''library'' of the family, the 
** sitting-room" of the household, the ''place for 
studying" for the school child, and the "chamber" of 
the sleeper should be in the upper stories. The higher 
up, the more rarified the air ; this greater rarity excites 
the instinct of our nature to deeper, fuller breathing, 
this kind of breathing is a preventive of consumption. 
Consumption is the scourge of civilized society, and de- 
stroys a sixth of our adult population. In the city of 
Mexico, 9,000 feet above the level of the sea, only three 
of one hundred die from consumption. In our larger 
cities, near the sea-level, eighteen out of every hundred 
die of consumption. 

Every student, every sedentary person, everybody 
should try to have the room, in which much of his time 
is spent, as far above the ground as possible. Particu- 
larly get all the sun-light possible. Never close the 
shutters in day time. Always allow the sun to shine 
into your room, and especially the school room, the 
great portion of the day. The sun's rays assist power- 
fully in rarifying the air, and thus developing and ex- 
panding the lungs. 

Out-door activities, causing a consumption of pure 
air and nutritious food, or, in other words, whatever 
builds up the system and makes good blood, is curative 
of consumption in its incipient stages. Always consult 
a good reliable physician, where there is suspicion of 
consumption. 

I^t every teacher require pupils to stand and sit in 



76 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

an erect posture, breathe pure air, and take exercise as 
a preventive. 

The earliest symptoms of Consumption are : 

A quicker pulse than ordinary, a paler face, easily- 
chilled after eating, shortness of breath, wasting away 
of flesh, unrest on rising in the morning, a tendency to 
coldness of hands and feet, subject to colds, and a con- 
firmed cough, which all means a want of vitality of 
general vigor. The pulse beats 68 to 72 times a minute 
in healthful adult life. When it is below 66 or over 72, 
continually, there is ground of apprehension that con- 
sumption is approaching. 

To Prevent Spread of Consumption. — It is to a 
very large extent preventable. It is, though not gener- 
ally known a contagious disease. Consumption, or pul- 
monary tuberculosis, is in every case caused by disease 
germs which grow in the lungs in enormous numbers. 
When a person is sick with this disease, these germs are 
coughed up in great quantities in the expectoration, and 
when this becomes dry and crumbles, or is trodden to 
dust, the germs float about in the air and are liable to 
be breathed into the lungs of any one. If the lungs of 
the person who does breathe them are poorly developed, 
or if the constitution is feeble, the germs are very sure 
to grow and cause the disease. Unfortunately we do 
not know how to kill them when they are once in the 
air passages. The best that can be done is to build up 
the system and strengthen the lungs by the use of cod 
liver oil, good food, and fresh air. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 77 

Much, however, can be done to prevent the spread 
of the disease by destroying the germs as completely as 
possible in every case. 

(i) No person having consumption should ever spit 
on the floor or in the street. If handkerchiefs or bits of 
cloth are employed, they should at once be disinfected 
or burned. A good plan is tc use a small wide-mouthed 
bottle with a rubber stopper. The contents should be 
thrown into the fire and the bottle and stopper thoroughly 
scalded with boiling hot water every day. 

(2) The dishes used by a consumptive should be at 
once scalded, and the unwashed underwear and bed 
clothing should be thoroughly boiled as soon as possible. 

(3) When a person with consumption has diarrhea, 
the discharges from the bowels should at once be disin- 
fected, as at this time they contain the disease germs. 
A good way is to add a half teacupful of fresh chloride 
of lime, or fill up the chamber vessel with boiling water. 

(4) No one with consumption should sleep in the 
same room with another person, and the room occupied 
by a consumptive should be made thoroughly clean as 
often as possible. 

(5) No mother with consumption should nurse an 
infant, and children ought never to be taken care of by 
a consumptive person. 



78 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 



Cough Medicines. 

Dangerous Cough Medicines. — All intelligent 
physicians agree that patent cough medicines and nos- 
trums are dangerous, particularly when administered to 
children. 

All medicines sold for coughs, colds, consumption, 
and tickling in the throat, contain opium in some form 
or other. They repress the cough but do not eradicate 
it ; hence the first purchase paves the way for a second 
or a third ; meanwhile, as it is the essential nature of 
opium to close up, to constringe, to deaden the sensibil- 
ities, the bowels do not feel the presence of their 
contents calling for a discharge, and constipation is in- 
duced and becomes the immediate cause of three-fourths 
of all ordinary ailments, such as headache, neuralgia, 
dyspepsia, and piles. 

There are but few, if any, cough medicines which 
do not contain opium in some form, and being invari- 
ably advertised as perfectly harmless the consequence is, 
many cases of poisoning by them every winter. They 
are seldom among adults, because the quantity of the 
drug is small ; but children in large numbers are vic- 
tims, for the reasons their parents do not know how to 
properly regulate the doses. 

Patent Medicines Cause Many Deaths. — We 
know that more than one-third of all the children die 
before they are five years old. One cause for this terri- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 79 

ble mortality is the indiscriminate use of patent medi- 
cines and especially those advertised as cures for coughs, 
colds and bronchial affections. If a child has bron- 
chitis, the same medicine which would be good for it in 
the first stage of the attack would, as a rule, do it much 
harm after the disease had run on for several days. 
With scarcely an exception, parents consider in such 
cases that the one all important object is to stop the 
cough ; they never consider that there is a disease back 
of that which should first be overcome, and until it is, 
the cough should exist to clear the air passages of mat- 
ters which accumulate rapidly. Stop the cough under 
those conditions and you but dam up in the chest what 
must be expelled by coughing, otherwise suffocation is 
threatened. 

It should be clearly understood that a cough at all 
severe * * must have its run, ' ' and would not be likely to 
disappear inside of two or three weeks. If the patient 
** holds his own" at first, and after a week improves a 
trifle each day, that ought to satisfy any one. If it does 
not do that under the simple treatment which we have 
advised, then a physician should, by all means be con- 
sulted. If that is not done, but, instead, experiments 
with patent medicines are tried, harm is sure to result, 
and if the child is injured thereby and fails to recover, 
then the parents are alone to blame for its death. 

Cough drops, lozenges, troches, syrups are an in- 
jury in coughs and colds. They retard, instead of pro- 
moting expectoration^ which is nature's plan to get rid 
of accumulated matter. 



/4 

80 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

I 

rioney Making and Health. 

The first of April has had its effect on the health 
of many persons. It is the day when settlements are 
usually made, and woe to the person who is short. It 
is the time when changes in business and employments 
are usually made, and woe to him who gets left. 

What a blessed thing it is to feel that to-morrow is 
certainly and abundantly provided for, to be a little fore- 
handed, to have a little spare money always on hand. 
Money is a mec'^.cine, and making money in a legitimate 
way is both a tonic and stimulant. It accelerates the 
circulation. It enlivens the spirits. It lightens the 
heart. It wakes up our energies. The Bible tells us 
that * 'money is a good thing. " Of course the inordi- 
nate desire for money is a sin. *' The love of money is 
the root of all evil. ' ' With money, as with everything 
else, there can be abuses. These are sinful. But to 
have enough money to meet the ordinary requirements 
of life and of the family, is invigorating to health and 
spirits. 

Money a Good Tonic— Take any man any day 
who is '*hard up" — with whom the world does not go 
well — who finds he is going backwards pecuniarily, and 
yet claims are coming upon him which must be met ; 
wants which must be supplied ; necessities which cannot 
be evaded; his rent must be paid; his board bill must be 
liquidated ; the butcher and baker and milkman all are 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 81 

pressing for their respective dues ; let a man be ever so 
hopeful, ever so courageous, ever so brave, in general, 
there will be moments when the difficulties of his posi- 
tion become so pressing that his manliness almost for- 
sakes him ; he starts at his own shadow and well nigh 
comes to the conclusion that it is useless to struggle 
longer, and that he ' * might as well give up. ' ' Just at 
this juncture let a proposition be made, by which with 
the expenditure of a reasonable amount of bodily activity 
and mental adroitness, more money can be certainly 
made than he has been accustomed to realize in so short 
a time, with every guarantee that the dividend will in- 
crease with time in an encouraging proportion, and he 
becomes a new man within the hour ; his face wears a 
new aspect, a new life comes into his eyes ; color rushes 
to the cheeks ; the spring of youth is impressed into his 
steps and there is an elasticity imparted to both mind 
and body to which he has been long an entire stranger. 
Therefore money-making, in a legitimate way, is a med- 
icine good to take and easy, and to save is the easiest 
way of money-making. Practice economy. Spend a 
little less every day than you earn. You will thus have 
that ease and comfort of mind so conducive to health. 

Which is Cheaper ? — Is it cheaper to pay five or ten 
cents for a street car or an omnnibus, when going to and 
from the depot, or to walk, rushing to make the train 
and carrying a load of bundles, over-heating yourself, 
so that you have to pay five or ten dollars to the doctor, 
and lose a week or two from your work or business? 

Which is cheaper, to strain your eyes reading or 



82 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

sewing in the twilight, in order to save a few cents in 
your gas bill, and then paying dollars for spectacles, and 
suffering the inconvenience and annoyance of impaired 
eyesight the rest of your life time ? 

Which pays better, to rush over a street crossing, 
in front of a conveyance, and, perhaps accidentally slip 
and be run over, or to wait a minute, cross at your leis- 
ure, and go your way rejoicing ? 

Is it better to work yourself into a fit of excitement, 
live in a perpetual *'stew," do everything by the high 
pressure principle, and eventually, when the system can 
bear the strain no longer, topple over in an attack 
of apoplexy, before you have lived out half the period 
allotted to man, or to take life more at ease, give your- 
self time to do your work, not let your business drive 
you crazy, and outlive the period which Moses assigns 
to man in the ninetieth Psalm? 

Which is worth more to your child's lifetime, to 
rush him to school and through the Fifth Reader by the^ 
time he is ten, and then to suffer from a broken down 
constitution, nervousness, debility and a thousand other 
complaints, or to let him get a good, sound physical 
frame, by plentiful outdoor exercise first, even if he is 
not quite as smart as some of your neighbor's children, 
and yet, at the age of thirty be capable of better active 
service, having the sana mens in sano corpore ? Health 
first and knowledge afterwards, or an over burdened 
mind, with a body too effeminate to carry its weight — 
which ^ 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 83 



Precautions Against Contagious and 
Infectious Diseases. 

SCARLET FEVER, DIPHTHERIA, SMALL-POX, VARIOLOID, 

TYPHOID FEVER, TYPHUS FEVER, YELLOW FEVER, 

MEASLES, CHOLERA, DYSENTERY, ERYSIPELAS, 

MUMPS, AND WHOOPING COUGH. 

Some of these diseases are communicated directly 
from person to person ; such as scarlet fever, small-pox, 
and measles. Others contaminate fluids and solids 
which are eaten by human beings and thus enter the 
system ; such are typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery, 
while others still pass from person to person through 
the air, (so far as our present knowledge extends,) such 
as typhus fever, small-pox, whooping-cough and in- 
fluenza. 

It is fully believed by sanitarians that most infec- 
tious and contagious diseases could be '* stamped out'* 
completely, could mankind be induced to live up to the 
light which we now possess concerning their nature. 
The "plague," *' the black death," "the sweating 
sickness," and "cholera," m former years ravaged 
continents, carrying to the grave from one-fourth to 
three-fourths of all the inhabitants. Their ravages have 
been stayed ; some of them are unknown in civilized 
countries. May the diseases here named be unknown 



84 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

to future generations. To aid in their restriction, the 
State Board of Health publishes this circular. 

HOW CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ARE SPREAD. 

How Spread. — It is believed that each of these 
diseases is the result of a special poison (contagion) 
working in the body. These enter the system in differ- 
ent ways, and exert their main force on different parts 
of the body. 

Scarlet fever, small-pox and measles and all erup- 
tive fevers of the skin are probably propagated by a poi- 
son discharged in the dead skin, as well, also, as by 
means of all discharges from the bowels, bladder, nose, 
mouth, eyes and ears. The discharge from the skin, 
dry dust, scales, scabs, etc., as well as from the nose 
and mouth, are believed to be especially malignant. 

In diphtheria, the discharges from the mouth, nose 
and throat, as well as from the bowels and bladder, are 
believed to contain the poison, especially those from 
nose, mouth and throat. The same is true of whooping- 
cough. In the case of consumption the matter coughed 
from the lungs probably is a means of propagating that 
disease. Typlioid fever, cholera and dysentery have 
their special poisons in the discharges from the patient's 
bowels which are disseminated in drinking water. The 
same is probably true of yellow fever. Puerperal fever 
may be conveyed from patient to patient on the person 
of physicians and nurses. Parasitic diseases are ob- 
tained from foods and drinks, and by actual contact of a 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 85 

healthy person with one diseased. The same is true of 
syphilis. Typhus fever seems to be a disease caused by 
over-crowding, and by foul gases from sewers and 
drains. 

TIME REQUIRED TO DEVELOP THESE DISEASES. 

The time intervening between exposure to the spe- 
cial poison and the appearance of the first symptoms of 
these diseases varies greatly. It may be from only a 
few hours, as in the case of cholera and yellow fever, to 
three or four weeks or even longer as in typhoid fever. 

A case of genuine yellow fever was developed at 
Womelsdorf, Pa. , which caused the death of a child, 
after a few hours of sickness with black vomit. The 
disease was carried all the way from Florida, in the 
shipping of a live alligator, sent to the boy as a present 
What an impressive health lesson is taught by this oc- 
currence. 

The germs of disease, not only of yellow fever, 
but of scarlet fever, diphtheria, etc., are frequently 
carried in clothing, playthings, etc., of children and 
thus transmitted long after the disease has disappeared. 

At a meeting of the Funeral Directors Association, 
at Brie, Penn., a very interesting communication was 
read by B. Frank Kirk, a member of the fraternity. 
He told, with grim satire, of many experiences in 
burials after infectious diseases, one of which shows so 
plainly the indifference of people to the matter of pre- 
vention. It is worth repeating : 



86 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

**A wealthy lady, whose little boy we carried to 
the tomb after he had died of scarlet fever, requested us 
to carry in our wagon a large bundle of his clothing to 
a poor family not far away. When we meekly sug- 
gested that the articles had better be disinfected first, 
she seemed hurt, and with a look of ineffable scorn 
repelled the imputation that any disease lurked in the 
habiliments of her precious babe. 

**But we must do the lady the justice due her big, 
kind heart, and testify to the fact that she contributed 
quite largely to the expenses attending the burial of the 
two children of the poor woman whose little ones soon 
wilted and perished of scarlet fever after receiving the 
package of fine clothing.'* 

PervSons I/iable to these Diseases. — As a gen- 
eral rule, one attack gives immunity from any second 
attack. Scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, and whoop- 
ing cough prevail most among children, but may attack 
all ages. The other diseases named attack persons of 
all ages. As a rule, the cleanly, temperate, well-fed, 
and well-housed suffer less from these diseases than do 
the ill-fed, intemperate, ill-clothed, over-worked, and 
ill-housed, but this is not always so. The intemperate 
certainly suffer more than others. Those who have 
been successfully vaccinated within seven years, do 
positively escape small-pox. Persons who are in a 
** run-down'* and exhausted state of body, are [more 
liable than others to have the germs of disease take root 
in their bodies than are others. Typhoid fever espec- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 87 

ially attacks those in vigorous life. Diphtheria gener- 
ally passes nursing babies. 

How to Avoid these Diseases. — See to it that 
your family and yourself are successfully vaccinated. 
Unless your services are needed, stay away from all 
houses in which these diseases are present. Don't 
attend funerals from any of these diseases. Keep 
children away from all houses in which these diseases 
prevail. If any of these diseases, to which children 
are subject, are epidemic in a town, keep your children 
from day and sabbath schools, from churches, and all 
assemblies. Be sure that the water you drink is pure ; 
well water is always to be suspected. In traveling, it 
is safest t;o drink only boiled water, such as one gets in 
tea and coffee. When renting a house always ask if it 
has been free for the past two years, from all these 
contagious diseases, and demand a written guarantee. 
Educate the people of your neighborhood as to the 
nature of these diseases, and what they should do when 
they occur. Aid in establishing a local board of health, 
and see that your community has laws in reference to 
cleanliness, private funerals, the isolation of those sick 
of contagious diseases, and the closing of schools and 
churches against those living in houses in which any 
disease prevails. The country privy and the city cess- 
pool should be abolished everywhere absolutely. The 
most scrupulous cleanliness must be enforced every- 
where. When contagious diseases prevail, do not send 
your clothing to the public laundries. There should be 



88 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

a notice on every house in which there is a contagious 
disease, so that the public may be warned to remain 
away. 

If one is required to be about one sick with a 
contagious disease, he should eat his meal regularly, 
take some exercise in the open air each day, get his 
usual amount of sleep, and dismiss all over-anxiety as 
to the danger of contagion. But he must avoid the 
special poison. Do not take the breath of the sick one. 
Do not touch with the lips any food, drink, cup, spoon, 
or anything else that the sick person has touched, or 
that has been in the sick room. Do not wipe your 
face or hands with any cloth that has been on or near 
the sick person. Do not wear any clothing the sick 
has worn during, just before, or just after his sickness. 
Keep your hands free from any discharges from the 
body or skin of the sick person, and if they do become 
soiled, wash them soon as possible in water containing 
a solution of chloride of lime. Do not touch the sick 
with sore or scratched hands. Particularly avoid 
receiving into the body through the mouth or nose, any 
of the scales or scabs from the skin of those sick or 
recovering from scarlet fever or small-pox. Consump- 
tives should spit on rags and these should be burned. 
This sputa should never be eaten by chickens or other 
domestic animals, as there is reason to believe that it 
will infect them, and they in turn, through their meat, 
other human beings. 

Whenever a place is threatened with an epidemic 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES 89 

of any contagious disease, the local board of hea*^, or^ 
the town council, should appoint a few discreet persons 
who should go from house to house and instruct th( 
people in what they should do to avoid the threatened 
danger. This should be done without creating any 
alarm. The town should be thoroughly and scientific- 
ally cleaned and disinfected, and the condition of the 
drinking water examined by an expert. 

. Precautions, — One of the greatest errors into 
which people can fall, is the belief that whatever is to 
be will be. Won mer' s hawe soil grikt nier' s doch^ is 
an expression very often heard among Pennsylvania 
Germans. It is frequently said : ' ' I am not afraid 
that I will get this disease, for if I am to have it, I will 
get it anyhow.'* This is fatalism in its worst form. 
If Adam was to fall, he would have sinned, regardless 
of what he could have done ; if a person is destined to 
go to the bad, he will go and nothing can prevent it. 
If a person is to have measles or small-pox, or diph- 
theria, or consumption, or typhoid fever, he will get it 
despite all precautions." This is a fatal error. 
Parents and teachers should guard, assiduously, 
against instilling such principles into the minds 
of the young. We are bound by the duties which we 
owe to ourselves and our fellow-men, especially our 
families, to take all precautions for the preservation of 
property, body and mind. The householder, who is 
careless with his lamps and fires, is responsible if a 
conflagration results from his carelessness. The parent, 



90 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

who does not watch over the health of his children, is 
guilty of the sin of neglect, especially if he lets arsenic 
lie around the house, where the little ones have access 
to it and swallow it. The mother, whose little ones 
have measles, or chicken pox, or mumps, or scarlet 
fever, is in duty bound to keep them warm and dry. 
If she drives them out into the wet and cold, she is 
responsible for the result, and it will not do for her to 
argue, **if they shall get well they will get well, and if 
they are to die they will anyhow. '* The father who 
refuses or neglects to send for a skillful physician, when 
his children are sick, holding the fatalistic doctrine, if 
they shall get well they will do so, whether I furnish 
them medical treatment or not, is as guilty of sending 
them to the grave, as if he refused to put a roof on his 
house, on the principle that, if they are to be sheltered 
they will be, and if it is not to be so it will not 

Precautions are Necessary under all circum- 
stances. To employ all the means, which God and 
nature has given us for the prevention of disease, is a 
solemn religious duty, as well as a common sense prin- 
ciple. Let no one neglect it, or be blinded by the 
fatalistic belief, that what is to happen will happen. 
When there are contagious diseases in the community, 
take the necessary precautions in school and family. 
Keep the children away. Isolate them from other 
members of the family if there is sickness in the house. 
Let those whose duty it is, attend to the sick and take 
the necessary precautions, just as physicians, ministers, 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 91 

and nurses do in such cases. Do your duty and trust in 
God. 

Infection from Paper Money. — Some singular 
facts concerning the danger of infection by paper 
money have been educed by a bacteriological analysis 
of the bank notes of the Spanish Bank of Havana in 
general circulation. Attention was drawn to the sub- 
ject by the fact that circulation increased the weight of 
the notes in consequence of their acquiring foreign 
matter. The examination made showed on the notes 
in use for some time a considerable number of microbes, 
and on some notes as many as 10,000 microbes were 
detected. Eight pathogenic species were encountered, 
including those of diphtheria and tuberculosis. The 
result of the examination was that a general warning 
was issued to the public against the active source of 
danger. The use of bank notes is at all times attended 
with a certain degree of risk, and especially in Havana, 
where children have the habit of carrying paper money 
in their mouths and are thus very liable to swallow the 
germs of some mortal disease. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Disinfectants. 

Valuable Ones. — Attention cannot be called too 
frequently to the necessity of disinfecting school rooms, 
buildings and premises, in general, especially if diseases 
prevail in the neighborhood. 

The sun's rays are powerful. The accumulations of 
the winter months inside and outside of buildings, some 
of them almost unavoidable, are such as to require 
immediate attention. Alleys, yards and roadsides 
should be thoroughly cleaned at once, for, to say noth- 
ing of the unsightly and ofttimes disgusting appearances, 
these refuse piles present, they are disease and death 
breeders. Give a thorough cleaning out to all gutters 
and receptacles of debris and have all accumulations 
removed. Rake together all dead leaves, grass and 
decaying vegetable matter, and burn them up. In other 
words, remove and destroy all disease breeding germs in 
and about the premises. Do not depend on disinfect- 
ants, as long as the sources which are capable of 
producing sickness remain. 

The mere creation of an odor to overpower some 
other odor, or the use of a material which only retards 
decomposition, has no claim to be trusted in destroying 
disease germs. Large sums of money are spent 
annually for worthless chemical agents, while the proper 
precautions are neglected. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 95 

Gases not Odors Should be Killed. — An item 
goes the rounds of the papers that onions, cut in thin 
slices, and put on a plate in a room will absorb noxious 
effluvia. This is just as true as that the smarting from 
the scratch of a pin becomes instantaneously unfelt if a 
person is knocked down. Camphor sprinkled around, 
sugar burnt, cologne, bay rum and similar perfumes 
only add to the mischief It is not the odor you want 
to get rid of, or which does the mischief, but the poison- 
ous gases and miasm generated by escaping substances, 
which generally emit very little or no odor. You must 
go to the root of the matter, for as long as there is no 
eradication from the foundation the mischief is not rem- 
edied. The American Public Health Association has 
given the following definitions : A disinfectant is an 
agent capable of destroying the infective power of 
infectious material. Agents which merely mask un- 
pleasant odors are deodorants, and their purpose is not 
the destruction of disease germs. 

We repeat, at this season of the year, spring, you 
can not begin too early ; take decisive steps to have 
your premises put in a clean condition, if you would 
guard against malaria, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, 
diphtheria and similar diseases. Use lime, chloride of 
lime, copperas solution, chlorine gas, and similar disin- 
fectants freely, but first of all, give the premises a 
thorough cleaning. 

A cheap disinfectant is a solution of chloride of 
lead. It is inodorous, effective, and the cost is small. 



94 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

Take half a drachm of the nitrate and dissolve it in a 
pint or more of boiling water. Dissolve two drachms 
of common salt in a pail or bucket of water ; pour the 
two solutions together and allow the sediment to sink. 
A cloth dipped in this solution and hung up in a rooom 
will correct a bad odor promptly, or if the solution be 
thrown down a drain or upon foul-smelling refuse, it 
will have the same effect. 

The author recommends mercurial chloride. The 
windows, chimneys, etc. , are carefully closed up, and 50 
grms. mercuric chloride are placed in any suitable vessel, 
which is then set on a pan of burning charcoal, the 
operator leaving the room and closing the door. After 
about four hours he re-enters, with a cloth over his 
mouth and nose, and throws open the windows. After 
some hours of ventilation, a slight stoving with sulphur 
is made to follow, which neutralizes any remnants of 
mercury. This process not merely disinfects, but de- 
stroys all kinds of vermin. 

The room to be purified with sulphur should be 
made as tight as possible, so that no fumes can escape, 
either by window, door or chimney. Put three pounds 
of sulphur in an iron pot, which should not stand upon 
woodwork or carpet, lest they be burned, but in a large 
pan of ashes, or upon a layer of bricks ; on this pour a 
tablespoonful of alcohol. This is then set on fire, and 
everybody immediately withdraws from the room. The 
room should remain closed ten hours, after which it 
should be thoroughly aired before it is occupied, for the 
fumes of the sulphur are irritating to the lungs. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

Heat is one of the best, if not the best disinfecting' 
agent. Articles of bedding and furniture that cannot 
well be treated otherwise can be purified by a long ex- 
posure to a temperature of 240° F. In some cities, 
especially in England, furnaces are made for the recep- 
tion of bulky articles that have become infected. 

Fresh pure air is another powerful agent. If woven 
fabrics, clothing and the like are for a long time aired 
out of doors, they cease to be infective ; probably by the 
enormous dilution, if not destruction of the elements of 
danger. 

THE TIME TO DISINFECT. 

Not only because there is danger of cholera 
visiting us, but for sanitary reasons, in general, it is 
important that great care should be exercised, so that 
the premises of home and school be cleaned and disin- 
fected. This work can not begin too early. 

Therefore, as soon as the weather permits, clean 
away all rubbish, ash piles and deposits of whatever 
kind in the vicinity of dwellings and school houses. 
Especially clean and whitewash cellars. Permit no 
rotten potatoes, or other vegetables that are going to 
decay, to remain there. Scatter lime about the build- 
ings ; chloride of lime is better, but it is expensive. 
Dissolve two pounds of copperas (sulphate of iron) in a 
bucketful of soft water, and pour off the solution, by 
the tincupful, into water closets and around the walls of 
buildings and out-houses. Repeat this every week till 
warm weather has fairly set in. 




96 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 



Dyspepsia. 

A LITTLE COMMON SENSE ON A TRITE SUBJECT. 

Sarly Rising a Humbug. — Dyspepsia has one 
virtue, it will get out, bag and baggage, if given a fair 
chance. It can only be kept as a companion by being 
fed and nourished according to its own peculiar tastes. 

Of all the humbugs ever gotten up for the cure of 
dyspepsia, early morning walks are, perhaps, the 
greatest. A long walk on an empty stomach will ex- 
haust and tire a well man, Hov/ much more will it 
exhaust and tire one already suffering from lack of vital 
energy ? It will do very v/ell for those with a tendency 
to overfatness or with too much vital energy. The 
dyspeptic is the better for sleep and rest. 

The old doctrine that the early morning air is purer 
and healthier than that of midday has been exploded. 
The foul damps that rise from the earth after the vital- 
izing and purifying rays of the sun have been withdrawn 
are still afloat. The air may feel much cooler, and to 
one with plenty of good blood it is most agreeable, be- 
cause it robs his system of the surplus heat, which in- 
duces the languor he experiences when he gets out of 
bed. 

A thin- blooded individual will suffer chills, while 
his fat friend will be experiencing a glow. One is 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 97 

braced up, the other shaken up. There is the difference. 
It is a question of blood, not of nerve or disposition. 
The fat man is not jolly because he is fat, nor is the 
jolly man fat because he is jolly. They are fat and jolly 
because their digestion is good. 

The first thing a Dyspeptic must do in order to 
get well, is to give his brain a rest. I^et him cultivate 
a habit of resting quietly one hour after eating a break- 
fast of boiled steak, toast.and clear coffee ; sleeping one 
hour, or more, after a dinner of roast beef, fish or fowl, 
toast and coffee or milk ; an hour's rest after a supper of 
steak, game or fish, toast and coffee or tea, plain. 

There has been a good deal of fun poked at the hot 
water cure for dyspepsia, yet the fact remains that no 
better tonic and regulator for the stomach is known to 
the medical profession, than that same goblet of hot 
water — as hot as can be borne sipped slowly a half hour 
before each meal. 

Rest, plain food, plenty of sleep and freedom from 
care will knock the toughest case of dyspepsia silly. 
Pills and powders are no good for steady use. Occasion- 
ally they may be needed, but not often. 

Alcoholic and fermented drinks are bad medicines 
for dyspepsia ; neither is too much cracked wheat, oat 
meal or corn starch good. These should be touched 
sparingly. Milk is excellent when it agrees with one. 
It should never be gulped down, but drank slowly. 

The Causes of Dyspepsia. — One of the most fre- 
quent causes of dyspepsia (says Dr. Pepper), is the con- 



98 COMMON SENSE HEAL JH NOTES. 

stant use of irritating substances, such as tobacco, al- 
cohol and highly seasoned food. Tobacco and strong 
tea and coffee act both by depressing the nerve force of 
the stomach, and, if swallowed, by directly interfering 
with the digestive processes. It will not be disputed b s 
any fair-minded person that tobacco, tea and coffee are 
injurious when taken in excess. It must be admitted 
that the majority of men, in a state of health, can use a 
certain amount of tobacco without injury. This amount 
varies with the individual, but is in any case small. I 
cannot speak too strongly against the filthy and dis- 
gusting habit of chewing tobacco. 

How to Cute Dyspepsia. — Court fresh air by day 
and night. Always sleep with a half-open window. 
Masticate your food thoroughly, that is, chew it fine. 
Avoid spices, pickles, cheese, salt meat, sour crout, etc. 
Rise early, wash frequently, take plenty of exercise. 

A cup of hot water or hot milk at meals is better 
than coffee or tea, and much better than cold water. 

Do not eat too miicli, or force the appetite. 
Man is a miserable dyspeptic for a large part of his life ; 
and all from his not having had wit enough to know 
when he had eaten plenty, and being foolish enough, 
when he had felt the ill effects of thus eating too much, 
to repeat the process an indefinite number of times ; and 
all for the trifling object of feeling good for the briei 
period of its passing down the throat. For each minute 
of that good time he pays the penalty of a month of such 
suffering as only a dyspeptic can appreciate. What a 
fool man is 1 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 99 



Dysentery. 

Dysentery. — Is literally a *' difficulty among the 
intestines ;' ' it is a discharge of blood from the bowels, 
accompanied with what has been aptly called *'an 
atrocious pain. ' ' You feel as if you would be relieved 
by an evacuation, but when the attempt is made, there 
is a fruitless straining, termed tenesmus^ and nothing 
comes of it, unless it be blood. The rectum, or last 
foot of the lower bowel, is the main seat of dysentery, 
which is commonly called "bloody flux." It should be 
always considered a dangerous disease. At first the dis- 
charges are odorless ; but as the parts come more under 
the influence of the disease, they become disorganized, 
rotten, and insufferably offensive. Dysentery most 
abounds in hot, dry weather, and in often caused by bad 
air, a sudden check of perspiration, or by whatever 
makes the skin of the body cold. In fact, dysentery 
may be considered an exaggerated or aggravated 
diarrhea — the latter is water, the former, blood. The 
great distinguishing features of dysentery are bloody 
passages, with a frequent, fruitless, and painful effort to 
stool. It is one of those diseases which are very apt to 
go to a fatal termination, if let alone ; a disease which is 
often made more speedily fatal by being ignorantly 
tampered with ; and whether blood is passed from the 



100 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

bladder or tHe bowels, a skillful pbysician should be 
called in as promptly as possible, as promptly indeed, as 
if it were an attack of ckolera. 

Remedies. — ^While tlie physician is coming, there 
are several things which may be safely done for the 
comfort of the sufferer, if not for his cure. The patient 
should not sit up a moment ; should keep as quiet as 
possible ; should eat nothing but boiled rice, or flour- 
porridge, and swallow bits of ice to complete quenching 
of the thirst. A little cold flaxseed- tea may be swallowed 
from time to time. A favorite prescription of some of 
the old physicians of a past generation, and which is now 
said to be in vogue in Russia, for several forms of 
diarrhea and dysentery, is the use of raw meat — thus, 
take fresh beef, free from fat, scrape it into a pulp with 
a knife, season it with salt to make it more palatable, or 
with sugar for children, to whom begin with one tea- 
spoonful three times a day, gradually increasing the 
amount as they become fond of it. Adults may use it 
by spreading it between two slices of stale bread. Its 
merit consists in its being easily digested, very nutritious, 
of small bulk, and readily assimilated to the system. It 
is well known that children having the summer com- 
plaint will ravenously eat, or rather chew or grind bet- 
ween their gums, a piece of the rind of bacon or ham, to 
which is attached half an inch of fat, and begin to im- 
prove in a few hours. The whites of several eggs 
** whipped,'' and then sweetened with white sugar, and 
drank through the day, without any other food, is an 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 101 

admirable remedy in these ailments. Or for dysentery 
or protracted diarrhea take half a teacup of vinegar, with 
as much salt as it will take up, leaving a little excess of 
salt at the bottom, add boiling water until the cup is 
two thirds full, remove the scum, let it cool, and take 
one tablespoonful three times a day until relieved. It 
has not failed of cure in many hundred trials. 

As dysentery is often epidemic, it is wise to consider 
every case as a possible source of danger to others, and 
to disinfect the discharges with care. 






102 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 



Diphtheria. 

The word ** diphtheria," was introduced by M. 
Breton veau in 1826. It means a double skin. We 
have an inside skin, as well as an outside one. The in- 
ternal skin is called the mucous membrane. When the 
throat or wind-pipe is inflamed, a thin substance 
exudes from the inner skin of the throat, the mucous 
membrane. This appears in patches which spread and 
harden and thicken, until the wind-pipe is closed and 
death ensues. In croup the substance is less solid and 
forms a kind of phlegm, which is more or less tough, 
but not as solid or compact as in diphtheria. It is not 
as leathery in its nature, and not so difficult to remove. 
Diphtheria is also more dangerous than croup, on account 
of the general debility which seizes the patient, and 
its tendency to destructive ulceration, a kind of rot- 
ting or mortification. 

The whole mass of blood is corrupted, diseased, is 
destitute of those elements which are necessary to 
health. 

Children are mostly attacked with diphtheria, because 
it is a disease which depresses every power of life, and, 
hence, the weaker the subject, the more liable to the 
attack. The few grown persons who **take diphtheria" 
have some scrofulous or other weakening element. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 103 

Neither adult nor child in really vigorous health is ever 
attacked with it ; only such as are deficient in stamina 
suffer from it. 

The reason that several members of a family are 
attacked is the similarity of constitution, habits of life, 
diet, breathing the same air, etc. The immediate cause 
being mostly breathing a faulty or defective atmosphere. 
Hence raw, thawy, rainy days are the most dangerous. 

The Causes of Diphtheria are but imperfectly 
understood. It visits all places, town and country, dry 
and damp regions, elevated and marshy localities, illy- 
ventilated apartments and the open country. It tends, 
however, always to fasten on debilitated constitutions, 
or where the vitality is lowered. Bad blood is an es- 
sential condition of the disease. Impure and indiges- 
tible food, v/ith inattention to cleanliness, is also a 
source of it. Perhaps a pork diet may be named as one 
of the causes. It is certain that hog's meat is not very 
conducive to health, and that those who are predisposed 
to diphtheria, on account of constitutional weakness, 
would better abstain from the use of pork. No doubt, 
too, it is very often spread by the exposure of the corpses 
at funerals, and especially by the large attendance of 
children at funerals, and the indiscriminate visiting at 
the houses of the sick. 

How Children Complain and what to do in 
Diphtheria, — The three universally present symptoms 
of diphtheria are : Tst, a general prostration of the whole 
system ; 2nd, an instinctive carrying of the hand to the 



104 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

throat ; 3rd, an offensive breath. Sore throat, swelling 
outside, and an exceedingly offensive breath are among 
the first indications of diphtheria. On opening the 
mouth there will be seen in the back part of the throat 
and tonsils spots of a whitish or grayish white color, 
with fever and general depression and debility. 

Remedies. — In the earliest stages, a gargle of salt 
water should be freely used, every fifteen minutes, and 
flannel should be tied around the neck, dipped in salt 
water, as hot as the patient can endure, renewing every 
five minutes. Whether diphtheria is in the neighbor- 
hood or not, if a child complains of sore throat and has 
an offensive breath, send instantly for a physician. 
When diphtheria appears in a family, keep up a 
thorough ventilation, and send all the children who are 
not affected to a place several miles distant. Allow no 
child from a diphtheria family to come to school, or into 
another family where there are children. Allow no 
children to go to a house or funeral where this disease 
has been. Use chloride of lime as a disinfectant very 
freely. 

Disinfect the school, when the disease prevails in 
the neighborhood, with chlorine gas, prepared by mixing 
in a saucer placed on a warm stove a handful of fine 
salt, with an ounce of black oxide of manganese, and 
pouring sulphuric acid mixed with three times its bulk 
of water on it. Open the doors and windows when you 
disinfect the school. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 105 

What may be done to prevent Diphtheria. 

Every damp or foul place should be an object of sus- 
picion. Every damp cellar, every confined, sunless space 
is a source of danger, as well as every sewer or drain. 
Not, as we believe, because sewer gas by itself would 
give diphtheria, but because a sewer is an admirable 
place, according to the best of our knowledge, for the 
diptheritic poison to multiply, and if the gas of such a 
poisoned sewer is inhaled, the poison is likely to be in- 
haled with it, the gas playing the role of a carrier, just 
as drinking water often does for the poison of typhoid 
fever. 

It is not pretended that care can prevent diphtheria 
with anything like the same certainly that vaccination 
prevents smallpox, but much can be done, and if the 
disease does come, there is not added to the trial of 
dangerous illness the distressing sense of criminal care- 
lessness. 

Let, therefore, sunlight and pure air go everywhere 
about the habitation ; if any foul place be observed, see 
that it is cleansed, if necessary disinfected, and if pos- 
sible kept sweet and dry. Do not let the slops of the 
kitchen, be thrown upon the ground ; do not invite the 
filth of poultry by feeding them about the door. Do 
not — but the detail of household errors need not be gone 
into. 

How to Prevent its Spreading. — But if diph- 
theria has actually come, what shall be done to prevent 
its spread ? This is a threadbare tale, but must be told 



106 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

over and over again. First, remove, if possible, all 
children from contact witli the patient and from the 
place of supposed infection. If the latter be not possi- 
ble, keep all children absolutely away from the sick 
one and for a long time after the case is ended, as well 
as from the room where it was ill. Moreover, let no 
adults w^ho are not much needed go near the child, and 
let no one attend both the patient and the well children. 
Such details involve much care, we grant, but neglect- 
ing them so often means serious, if not fatal, illness 
that they must be insisted upon. Instances enough of 
the results of laxness in this particular could be given, 
but they are too painful. Let nothing go out of the 
sick room to other children. We have in mind the 
setting up of diphtheria in a town in a distant state by 
means of a doll, the plaything of a child fatally sick 
with diphtheria and sent after her death to one of her 
little friends. All things that can be burned with 
decent regard for economy, should thus be disposed of. 
For this reason no handkerchief should be used, but, in 
their stead, old rags or soft paper, which can be put into 
the fire directly or at frequent intervals. 

There is one source of diphtheria that has not been 
mentioned which may be best alluded to here, and 
which is held by many experienced observ^ers to be a 
very important one. It is contagion from patients able 
to be abroad. Some are, perhaps, adults, in whom the 
disease was not sufficiently severe to have ever laid 
them up, and passed unrecognized. Other are conval- 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 107 

escent cases — children mainly — who are allowed too 
soon to be about, and who carry to their companions in 
the house, the school or the street the poison which still 
clings in the recesses of their throats or their garments. 

It is the part of prudence to give care to the condi- 
tion of children's throats, and, if they present catarrhal 
condition, to teach them to cleanse them by the use of 
proper gargles or sprays. This may be done at morn- 
ing or evening or both. Among throat specialists there 
are a number of cleansing solutions pretty generally 
employed. A very simple one which answers this pur- 
pose very well, and can be made extemporaneously at 
slight expense, is a drachm (a small teaspoonful) of pure 
carbolic acid in a pint of lime water. * 

Valuable Hints. — Concerning the management of 
a case of diphtheria, so far as that they may fall within 
the domain of the parents, the following few rules, 
while not incorporating all, are still the most important 
for preventing the spread of this dreadful disease, and 
our earnest advice to every mother is to study them 
carefully, and preserve them for future reference. 

First, strips of linen or cotton fabric, about eight 
inches wide, folded several times, and long enough to 
reach from ear to ear, should be wrung out of ice water 
(if in winter), and if in summer put directly upon ice, 
and then applied externally to the throat, and as fast as- 
one cloth gets warm another should be ready to take its 
place. If the child -complains of being cold, its feet 
and hands should be bathed in as hot water as it can 



108 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

stand. When the child is very young, it may be readily 
ascertained if it be cold or not by feeling its hands and 
head. Under no circumstances should hot applications 
be made to the throat. If the child is old enough, it 
may be given broken ice to suck constantly, even if the 
water is spit out. The cold applications inhibit the 
growth of the microbes. The patient's hands should 
be washed frequently — and here let me say so should 
those of the attendants — and the vessel used for the 
purpose should not be used by anyone else. The pa- 
tient's clothing needs protection in front. 




COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 109 



Diarrhea. 

Hints for Summer. — August is one of the most 
fatal months of the year. Nearly twice as many per- 
sons die in August as in December. Cases of sickness 
are very frequent in August and September. Many of 
these are avoidable by exercising care in eating and 
drinking. Acids promote the secretion of the bile, 
prevent fevers and keep the system free. Hence, eat 
fruits, berries, cold-slaw, pickles, salads, and avoid 
sweet milk, ale, beer, porter, which tend to create bile, 
to constipate, to induce headache, cold feet, neuralgia, 
and want of appetite. The whole system is weak, and 
indisposed to efforts in hot weather. The stomach is in 
a relaxed condition, and to impose on it full, heavy 
meals, and then to urge it by tonics, stimulants and 
tempting viands is suicidal, and the cause of much of 
the sickness and suffering of summer. 

Diarrhea, looseness of bowels, is a very common 
complaint in summer. It is not caused by eating ripe 
fruit, with moderation, as some people surmise, but, on 
the contrary, fruit in season is healthful when ripe and 
temperately eaten, and a prevention of bowel diseases. 
It is nature's food, prepared for use, at the time of 
ripening. Common sense teaches that it should be used 
at the time that the. Creator dishes it up for us on his 
great table in nature. 



no COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

In warm weather, when there is excessive vermi- 
cular action of the bowels, or looseness, as it is famil- 
iarly called, every step a person takes has a tendency to 
set the bowels in motion. Instinct and common sense, 
therefore, dictate the most perfect rest. Drinking fluids 
aggravates the malady. Lumps of ice chewed and 
swallowed, in as^large pieces as possible, will allay the 
excessive thirst. This treatment will cure nine, cases 
out of ten, if adopted within forty-eight hours, if not, 
call a physician. 

Diarrhea Cured by Quietness.— Z^/^rr/^^^ of hot 
weather is often cured by maintaining perfect quietude 
in bed, and eating acid fruits and berries in their nat- 
ural state while ripe, raw and fresh. If the acid fruit 
fails, eat nothing for a few days but common rice, 
parched brown like coffee, and prepared in the usual 
way. 

Persistent summer diarrhea is usually caused by 
malaria, sewer air or impure water. The conditions 
liable to contaminate air and water should be carefully 
sought out and remedied. The water can be rendered 
safe by boiling. 

Many persons have diarrhea as a consequence of a 
cold; they can not rest until they "take something'' to 
*' check it,'' with the certain result of its falling on the 
liver, to end in a "bilious attack," if not on the lungs, 
to cause pneumonia, or pleurisy, or other more serious 
form of disease. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. Ill 



Diet. 

Why we Should Bat. — We eat and drink for two 
reasons : to supply waste and to keep warm. The more 
we work or think, the more waste there is, the more we 
must eat. The heat of the body is 98 degrees, and this 
is the same, in health, whether we are on Greenland's 
icy mountains, or India's coral strands, or where 
Afric's sunny fountains roll down their golden sands. 

The temperature of the body being the same, 
always, at all places, the amount of heat to be supplied, 
the food to be eaten must vary, and be proportioned to 
the heat needed, just as we make more or less fire in 
our dwellings, to meet the temperature without. The 
family using the same amount of coal in July as in Jan- 
uary is crazy. The man who eats as much in July as 
in January is ditto. But there are still bigger fools 
than this man. They are those who when warm 
weather comes, finding that their appetite is not as 
keen, think "there is something the matter" with 
them, and begin to ' ' take something " to " sharpen the 
appetite," as tonics, bitters, whiskey, etc. 

We change our clothes in spring from heavier to 
lighter, beigin to wear straw hats, shave down our 
beards, and lay aside our hibernating habits. Among 
the things that should receive special attention now, is 



112 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

our food. Many people have a supply of pork on hand, 
which must be eaten up — one of the worst things that 
can be done. Our instincts revolt against this practice. 
If we were but as wise as the animals, we would heed 
the warning and refrain from eating fat meats. It may 
do for the Esquimau to swallow his blubber and eat 
tallow candles. But, we are neither Esquimaux, nor 
do we live in the frigid zone. If we disregard the indi- 
cations of nature, the stomach will rebel and we 
become bilious. 

When the winter appetite like our thick clothing, 
is put off, or reduced, to attack nature by an attempt to 
hamper the appetite by the use of delicacies and choice 
viands and overloading the stomach, is the height of 
folly. This results in overworking the stomach, 
deranging the organs of digestion, and inviting disease. 

Do not use Appetisers. — Appetizers, tonics and 
** Spring'' medicines are next resorted to. If the 
old-fashioned sassafras tea were used, the effects would 
not prove so injurious, but instead of this all kinds of 
patent medicines and nostrums are swallowed, and the 
result is weakness, biliousness, chills and perchance 
malaria. 

Now, all this trouble might be avoided by proper 
diet, in proper quantity, and at proper times. Let the 
following rules be observed, and many of the spring 
ailments can be avoided : 

Change from a fatty to a less fatty diet 

Avoid pork and rich pastry. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 113 

Spread your butter only half as thick. 

Bat a soft boiled ^^'g or two for breakfast. 

Eat a piece of beefsteak, done rare, once a day. 

Use plenty of vegetables. 

Eat fish rather than too much meat. 

Always drink a cup of strong coffee in the morn- 
ing before leaving the house. 

Do not eat between regular meals. Parents do 
their children great injury, and oft-times prepare the way 
for sickness, by indulging them in this habit. 

Don't eat dinner, nor any other meal, at 9 p. m. 

Nature craves for something acidous. Drink 
weak lemonade occasionally. 

Avoid highly seasoned food. 

Mustard, horse-radish and onions, if used at all, 
should not be used in large quantities. Better avoid 
them. 

Salt should be used but sparingly. 



114 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Importance of a Good Breakfast. 

Better to make your Coffee good and less of it 
than to have a bucketful of slop, that has no taste of 
coffee. The people of the South know how to make 
good coffee. They can beat us Pennsylvanians in coffee 
making, though we can beat them in cooking. Coffee 
should not be boiled * ' all to pieces. ' ' A cup of good 
coffee y even, if it is not a good cup of coffee, a little of 
it, but good and strong, is the best medicine a person 
can swallow in the morning. It is a great health pro- 
moter and preserver. 

Better to have a small piece of beefsteak for your 
breakfast, well prepared, good and tender, not all burnt 
to a crisp, all the flavor and nourishment, which it con- 
tained sent up the chimney, than much of the tough, 
indigestible, tasteless stuff, so often found on the table. 
It should be broiled, rare and juicy. 

What a grand thing it is to rise with the sun, at 
this season of the year. He that lies abed till seven 
misses one of the great operas of nature — the birds* 
concert. It pays to take in this gratuitous performance 
— for the admission is ''free, gratis, for nothing.'' But 
it does not pay to go abroad with an empty stomach. 

The morning meal, or breakfast, breaking the fast, 
Frueh-Stuecky early piece, ''early bit," is the most 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 115 

important meal of the day. On it, and the time it is 
taken depend, to a great extent, our feelings of the day. 
It should be taken within an hour after leaving the 
bed, and especially before going out into the raw air 
and dampness of the morning. If the "fast is not 
broken'^ soon, the physical and mental energies, unsup- 
ported by food, gradually lessen and exhaustion ensues. 
The fluids of the stomach and smaller tissues begin to 
act upon the coats of these viscera, instead of the food, 
and an unpleasant feeling of hunger, or a loss of appe- 
tite comes on, as a natural consequence. When 
breakfast cannot be taken within a reasonable period 
after rising, the • gap should be filled up by chewing a 
crust, a biscuit or the like. A raw ^gg ^'' sucked''^ from 
the shell, or broken into a teacup and drunk, will be 
found most valuable for the purpose. 

Children Should Eat a Good Breakfast.— 
Pupils are sometimes found in the morning without 
having had any breakfast. It stands to reason that a 
child will suffer from nervousness, headache, eye strain, 
etc. — ills which come from a run-down state of the 
system — if such a state of affairs is allowed. A diet of 
doughnuts is not the best for either mental or physical 
development, yet doughnuts are the most popular 
luncheon in the intervals between the different sessions. 

It is God's wise provision, to regulate our appetite 
in accordance with the weather, so as to desire less 
when the weather is warmer, and that of a differeiit 
kind. In winter we crave meats and fats, starches and 



116 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 

oily substances, sweetmeats and heat producing sub- 
stances. In summer we ratber loathe these, and desire 
acid berries, fruits, tomatoes, melons, etc.; we do not 
want solid heating food, but cooling and watery diet. 
Meats, sugar, cornstarch, fats, beans, rice, are heat pro- 
ducing substances. But vegetables, salads, greens, 
fruits, berries, tomatoes, melons, potatoes, etc., etc., are 
not. 

Nature furnishes in warm weather strawberries, 
raspberries, gooseberries, cherries and all kinds of 
small fruits, as well as garden vegetables and sim- 
ilar articles of diet, simply because the system does 
not require fire to warm it in summer, but water to cool, 
water to supply the material for perspiration and evap- 
oration, ninety-nine pounds of every hundred in berries 
being water. 

A person eating these plentifully will require but 
very little drinking water. 

Watermelons are the only articles of food that can 
be eaten in hot weather, with impunity, until no more 
can be swallowed. The seeds should not be swallowed, 
as they are injurious. Only good, ripe melons should 
be eaten. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 117 



Different Kinds of Food. 

About Fruit. — Taken in the morning, fruit is as 
helpful to digestion as it is refreshing. The newly- 
awakened function finds in it an object of such 
light labor as will exercise without seriously tax- 
ing its energies, and the tissues of the stomach 
acquire at little cost a gain of nourishment, 
which will sustain those energies in later and 
more serious operations. It is an excellent plan, 
with this object in view, to add a little bread to the 
fruit eaten. While admitting its possession of these 
valuable qualities, however, and while also agreeing 
with those who maintain that in summer, when the 
body is, at all events in many cases, less actively em- 
ployed than usual, meat may be less, and fruit or 
vegetables more freely used as a food, we are not pre- 
pared to allow that even then an exclusively vegetarian 
regimen is that most generally advisable. Meat 
provides us with a means of obtaining albuminoid 
material, which is indispensable in its most easily 
assimilable form. It affords us in this material not 
only an important constituent of tissue growth, but a 
potent excitant of the whole process of nutrition. It 
has, therefore, a real, definite, and great value in the 
ordinary diet of man, and the wholesomeness of fruit 



118 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

combined with farinaceous food as an alternative dietary 
is not so much an argument in favor of the vegetarian 
principle, as a proof that seasonable changes in food 
supply are helpful to the digestive processes and to 
nutritive changes in the tissues generally. 

Potatoes as Food. — As an article of diet, the 
potato is not any more valuable or healthful than many 
other kinds of food. Three-fourths of it is water, that 
is, ^\oo IS nutriment, while ^^loo is waste. Almost the 
entire nutriment is contained within a quarter of an 
inch of the surface, immediately under the skin. In 
peeling thick nearly all the most valuable part is 
wasted. 

Baked potatoes are easily digested. They require 
only two hours and a half. If boiled, they require three 
and a half. They are most healthful, and, perhaps, 
too, most delicious, if baked in the ashes. To have 
mealy potatoes, boil them until the fork penetrates 
them easily, pour off all the water, and cover the vessel 
with a cloth near the fire, till *' steamed" dry. 

Potatoes should not be solid nor watery when 
boiled — if so, they are injurious to health, indigestible. 
When fried brown, in slices, the starch is converted 
into charcoal, and the potato becomes indigestible and 
innutritions. 

Sixty pounds, that is a bushel of potatoes, give as 
much nourishment as thirty pounds of meat. Potatoes 
at fifty cents a bushel, therefore, are worth as much as 
thirty pounds of meat, costing three dollars. A potato 
diet is six times as cheap as meat. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 119 

In other words, a pound of potatoes, costing one 
cent, warms and nourishes the body as much as half a 
pound of meat, costing five cents. 

Meat, however, is more easily digested, and has 
some valuable ingredients peculiar to itself. 

All food contains nitrogen, the substance which 
supplies muscle, flesh or strength. Carbon, another 
element contained in food, gives warmth. The colder 
the weather, the more carbon is required. Alcohol is 
almost wholly carbon, and, hence, it produces heat, but 
it does not add a particle of flesh nor strength. A 
person feels stronger after taking a drink of spirits, but 
it is not real strength. It is only strength preternatur- 
ally drawn in advance, the nervous system having been 
stimulated to make that draught, by the influence 
which the alcohol had on it. 

Sugar is not Injurious to Health, nor, indeed, 
to the teeth. It is absorbed through the veins into the 
circulation, and there burned away for the production 
of heat. It is largely carbon, and as the carbon of the 
wood and coal furnish the heat in the stove, so sugar 
furnishes heat for the body. There is an old opinion 
that sugar attacks the teeth, corrupting them and caus- 
ing their decay. This, however, is one of the * ' buga- 
boos ' ' of frugal parents, in order to deter children from 
indulging in this luxury. Their fondness for sugar is a 
natural instinct, nature having placed it in milk, in 
order to form part of their nourishment. No people on 
earth have finer teeth than the negroes of Jamaica, who 



120 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

live almost exclusively from sugar. Instead of repress- 
ing the appetite for sugar, it ought to be gratified in 
moderation. But the evil is in the use of candies, 
many of which are adulterated. The sugar of which 
pure candies should be made is replaced with glucose, 
terra alba, oleomargarine, tonka, vanilline, nigrbane oil, 
Venetian red, extracts of coal tar, compound ethers, etc. 
Avoid the use of highly colored, highly flavored can- 
dies ; most of them contain poisonous ingredients. 

Children especially, even some larger ones, will be 
tempted to eat a considerable quantity of candy on 
Christmas. There is no particular harm in pure candy, 
if eaten with moderation. Too much of anything is 
too much, even so of candy. Always get clear candy, 
and indulge in it with moderation. It will not hurt 
you. 

Topics of this kind can be taught and talked on, 
in connection with the study of physiology. They are 
of great practical benefit, not only to children, but 
through them the older folks, who have never had the 
opportunity of studying physiology, will be placed in 
possession of this much needed information. 

Some Persons Bat Themselves to Death, 
others drink themselves to death. When a man is 
weak or does not feel well, he often thinks he could 
become strong and well again by eating. His friends 
are of the same opinion, and urge him to eat, to force 
down food. Now, all this is not only nonsense, but 
suicidal. Nature takes away the appetite purposely 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 121 

under some circumstances, and makes the sight of food 
nauseating. When a man does not feel well he is 
feeble, and the stomach shares in this debility. To 
require the stomach to do duty, under such circum- 
stances, is like imposing a load of labor on a man after 
he has performed a hard day's work and is *' tired to 
death." 

In hot summer weather every one, even the health- 
iest, becomes somewhat enervated, and is thus in the 
condition of a sick person. Now, if we sit down and 
shovel in a lot of provender, enough for an elephant, 
many would call this what is needed, when, in fact, it 
is the worst thing a person can do. As well take a dose 
of arsenic, which will do the killing quicker, with less 
protracted suffering. 

What is needed for ailing persons, and even the 
healthy in hot weather, when the stomach is averse to 
taking food, is to eat but little, and that the lightest 
kind of food, coarse bread, ripe fruits and vegetables, 
and then exercise in the open air. 

The stomach under such treatment may be able to 
convert a small amount of food into pure invigorating 
blood. 

Do not be afraid that you are going to be sick, if 
your appetite diminishes, in hot weather. Don't take 
Dutch gin, Schiedam schnapps, plantation bitters, '*rot 
gut," dirty beer, or ale, or porter, and thus impose on 
the stomach more labor than it can perform, and lay the 
foundation for summer fevers, dyspepsia, colic, dysen- 
tery and other diseases, often prevalent at this season. 



122 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

Ivcarn an object lesson from the dogs, the donkeys, 
the geese, and other live teachers in the animal king- 
dom, which are not fools enough to force down food, 
when their stomachs do not crave it, nor guzzle down 
vile stuff for an appetizer. 

Care in Eating. — You will be tempted to eat too 
much at many special occasions. Be on your guard, and 
stop before you are surfeited. If you feel that you have 
eaten too much, take a walk, gradually increasing its 
rapidity, until there is a free perspiration, and continue 
at this gait till every feeling of discomfort about 
the stomach or lungs has dissappeared ; then cool off 
very slowly, in a closed room, and do not eat an atom 
until the second meal thereafter, that is, omit one meal. 

Besides, as we have often said, eat and drink 
moderately, live on vegetables and fruits, avoid tainted 
meats and fatty substances. Let the children have all 
the ripe fruit they can eat with moderation. Fruits are 
intended by the Creator for diet in hot weather, yes, 
always. Exercise great moderation in all things, and 
attend to personal cleanliness, and ** whether you eat 
or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of 
God." 

Nature is no respecter of persons, not even of pres- 
idents ; she will punish the trangressor of her laws. 

Bating Before Retiring, — There has been quite 
a revolution of late years in many countries in regard 
to the connection between eating and sleeping, and it is 
said that a radical change is likely to take place before 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 123 

long in tlie practice of a great many families in 
England. The popular idea is that eating at night is 
highly injurious to the constitution. It is now recog- 
nized that nature contradicts this notion. Provided a 
man is hungry and his stomach is in proper condition, 
the practice is not only unharmful, but rather beneficial. 
To go to bed on an empty stomach is apt to drive sleep 
away altogether. Three or four hours before bedtime a 
substantial dinner or supper should be eaten, and on 
going to bed some simple food should be taken every 
night by those who have an inclination for it, and 
especially by delicate persons or invalids. Persons 
invariably feel drowsy after a heavy meal, and, on the 
other hand, wakefulness is often merely an indication of 
hunger. The digestive organs having finished with it, 
the blood flows once more to the head, bringing with it 
consciousness. The prevalent notion seems to be that 
the digestive organs rest simultaneously with the brain. 
Physiology does not support this proposition. Innum- 
erable cases can unfortunately always be found of men, 
women and children complaining of sleeplessness solely 
occasioned by hunger, the satisfying of which would 
immediately be followed by sleep. 



324 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 



Drinking Water and Water Drinking. 

Use in Moderation. — There is a strong tempta- 
tion, in warm weather, to drink ice water. A little 
common sense reflection will convince any one that 
this is injurious to health. lyct us reason together. 
The temperature of the stomach is about a hundred 
degrees. This is the natural warmth at which di- 
gestion goes on. Swallow cold water, the progress 
of digestion is at once arrested, and is not resumed 
until the water introduced into the stomach has 
been there long enough to be warmed, from the 
temperature of the ice water, say forty degrees, to 
a hundred. To accomplish this, heat must be ab- 
stracted from the system. Strong, robust persons 
may not feel it, but the feeble will feel chilly and 
feverish, digestion is imperfect, the stomach loses 
its vigor, and the foundation of disease is laid. 
What is the inevitable, common sense inference? 
That ice water is injurious to health, if taken at 
meals ; injurious to the most healthy, if taken in 
large quantities, and to persons in feeble health, 
if taken at all, beyond a few swallows. 

But the chief danger is the shock produced by 
swallowing the ice water. The blood is driven from 
its regular course, arrested in its flow, thrown, pos- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 125 

sibly, upon the heart, and, if sudden death does not 
result from apoplexy, there is great danger that 
the reaction will be such, if not suddenly to pro- 
duce serious consequences, nevertheless to weaken 
the efforts of the organs, so that disease of these 
organs will ensue. Organic diseases have become 
fearfully prevalent of late years, and one of the 
fruitful causes thereof is, no doubt, to be found in 
the indiscreet drinking of ice water. 

It has been a ^^schwerfrage^^ for a long time to 
decide if iced water is causative of kidney disease, 
from which it seems to be settled that the Ameri- 
can suffers more than other races, and the end is 
not yet Some physicians strongly protest against 
drinking any water or other liquid that is below 
freezing point. Stomach nerves are quick to re- 
sent sudden shocks, and temporary total arrest of 
digestion follows a draught of iced water or a plate 
of ice cream. Cool drinks, by all means, but never 
cold ; and no ice cream or frozen stuffs directly after 
meals. 

A series of experiments upon dogs proved that 
a tablespoonful of ice cream would suspend diges- 
tive processes for two hours; and there is no reason 
to presume that it would act differently in the hu- 
man stomach. If it must be eaten at all, it is safe 
only midway between meals or at bed time — and 
then only for young people, whose stomachs are 
quickly replenished with nerve energy from well 
filled centers. 



126 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

Better, therefore, avoid the use of ice water, 
than run the risk of contracting kidney disease. 

On Use of Ice — On the other hand ice itself 
may be taken as freely as possible, not only with- 
out injury, but with the most striking advantage in 
dangerous forms of disease. If broken in sizes of 
a pea or bean, and swallowed as freely as practic- 
able, without much chewing or crushing between 
the teeth, it will often be efficient in checking vari- 
ous kinds of- diarrhea, and has cured violent cases 
of Asiatic cholera. 

To drink any ice-cold liquid at meals retards 
digestion, chills the body, and has been known 
to induce the most dangerous internal congestions. 

If ice is put in milk or on butter, and these are 
not used at the time, they lose their freshness and 
become sour and ' stale, for the essential nature of 
both is changed, when once frozen and then thawed. 

Some Good Advice. — Much of the advice giv- 
en by papers, as to what we should drink, is bad 
advice, some, indeed, is dangerous. In some cases 
the good and the bad are so mixed that it takes a 
level head and considerable common sense to sepa- 
rate the chaff from the wheat. The following can 
be safely followed. 

The addition of oatmeal to drinking water makes 
it nutritive, satisfying and agreeable to the stomach. 
For laborers it makes a useful addition to the diet, costs 
but little aud repays the small outlay in the form of in- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 127 

creased ability to perform labor either physically or 
mental. 

The heat of the body may be modified to some ex- 
tent by the use of fluids cooled to any degree from that 
of the normal standard to the freezing point, and ice it- 
self may be swallowed when necessary to hasten the re- 
duction of temperature. When beverages are taken 
cooled in this way the amount needed is reduced. 

Water, as a beverage, iced or at the ordinary tem- 
perature, is frequently modified to render it more agree- 
able to the palate or stomach, or slightly nourishing or 
stimulating. The addition of a vegetable acid, such as 
lemon juice or vinegar, usually with sugar in some 
form, makes a drink agreeable to the taste, more diges- 
tible and slightly nourishing. 

Diluted cold tea has long been known as an agree- 
able, slightly stimulating beverage. For this or any 
other purpose the tea leaves must not be boiled. 

If you are away from home on a hot day, and feel 
as if it would be perfectly delicious to have a glass of 
lemonade, soda-water, or brandy toddy, by all means 
resist the temptation until you get home, and then take 
a glass of cool water, a swallow at a time, with a second 
or two interval between each swallow. Several note- 
worthy results will most assuredly follow. 

After it is all over, you will feel quite as well from 
a drink of water as if you had enjoyed a free swig of 
either of the others. 

In ten minutes^ after you will feel a great deal 
better. 



1 
128 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

You will not have been poisoned by the lead or 
copper which is most generally found in soda-water. 

You will be richer by five cents, which will be the 
interest on a dollar for one whole year ! 

You will not have fallen down dead from the 
sudden chills which sometimes results from drinking 
soda, iced wated, or toddy, in a hurry. 

No well man has any business to eat ices or to 
drink iced liquids in any shape or form, if he wants to 
preserve his teeth, protect the tone of his stomach, and 
guard against sudden inflammations and prolonged 
dyspepsias. It is enough to make one shudder to see a 
beautiful young girl sipping scalding coffee or tea at the 
beginning of a meal, and then close it with a glass of 
ice-water ; for at thirty she must either be snaggle- 
toothed or wear those of the dead or artificial ones. 

Fresh Water the Best Drink. — Fresh spring 
or well-water is abundantly cool for any drinking 
purpose whatever. In cities where water is artificially 
supplied, the case is somewhat different ; but even then 
there is no good excuse for drinking ice-water, because, 
even if the excuse were good in itself, the effects on the 
stomach and teeth are the same. 

Make a bag of thick woolen doubled, lined with 
muslin, fill it with ice ; have in a pitcher an inch or 
two of water above the faucet, and let this bag of ice be 
suspended from the cover within two inches of the sur- 
face of the water. The ice will melt slowly and keep 
the \7ater delightfully cool, but not ice cold. A still 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 129 

better effect will be produced if the pitcher is also well 
enveloped in woolen. Again, water almost as cool as it 
can be, unless it has ice actually in it, may be had with- 
out any ice at all, by enveloping a closed pitcher partly 
filled with water, with several folds of cotton, linen or 
bagging, and so arranging it that these folds are kept 
wet all the time by water dripping from another vessel, 
on the principle of evaporation. 

A glass of cool water, not ice water, is the most 
delicious, grateful and gratifying beverage that a person 
can take in hot weather, besides costing nothing and 
leading to no bad habits. Men in glass factories, where 
the heat is fearful, drink water only, not iced, and are 
healthy and vigorous. Field hands, on cotton and 
sugar plantations, drink a mixture of molasses and 
water. A safe drink for harvesters is water in which 
oat-meal has been stirred. Butter-milk is cooling, 
nutritious, and a liver stimulant. 

But even pure cold v/ater may be drunk too freely 
in summer. A person who drinks water, in large 
quantities in the early part of a summer day, will be 
more troubled with thirst, during the remainder of the 
day, than if these cravings had been resisted a few 
hours. 

If the drinking water is "hard,", having lime in 
solution, a teaspoonful of vinegar, or a bit of lemon 
juice squeezed into a tumblerful, will neutralize the 
lime, and make the water palatable. If it is murky, 
the least bit of powdered alum will make it clear as 
crystal. 



130 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

To guzzle down glass after glass of cold water, on 
getting up in the morning, without the feeling of thirst, 
is a stupidity of which even a horse, a dog, or a hog, 
would not be guilty. 

Drink cold water very slowly. The more thirsty 
you are, the more necessary it is, to the safety of life, to 
rinse out the mouth two or three times, before taking a 
swallow of cold water. A fruit stone or pebble, held 
in the mouth, or a bit of cracker chewed moderates 
thirst. 

Where you are forced to drink suspicious water 
boil it, and let it stand in the open air over night, so as 
to absorb oxygen. 

Those who drink but little, even of water, in sum- 
mer, will be more vigorous, more full of health, and 
much more free from bodily discomfort, than those who 
place no restriction on their portions. 

Drinking- When Very Warm — Many a person 
has dropped dead at the pump or at the spring, the 
result of drinking cold water when overheated, where 
there is bodily fatigue. Always when you are very hot 
and fatigued, grasp the glass of water in the hand, and 
hold it half a minute, and then do not take more than 
two swallows till you take a rest of fifteen seconds. 

Drinking Soda Water. — We do not wish to spoil 
the soda water business, nor is it likely that we shall, 
as people will drink soda water, regardless of what we 
write, just as they will go on to sin, regardless of what 
the preacher says. It is very certain, however, that 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 131 

the indiscriminate gulping of soda water is injurious. 
Not that the drinking of water impregnated with car- 
bonic acid is injurious. Per contra^ carbonic acid, 
when introduced into the stomach is wholesome, though 
it is highly pernicious in the lungs. But soda water is 
sometimes prepared by means of sulphuric acid, and the 
sirups very frequently contain injurious ingredients. 
The lemon sirup frequently is prepared with citric or 
oxalic acid, which is corrosive and destructive of the 
lining of the stomach. Many of the fruit flavors, such 
as strawberry, orange, banana, etc., do not contain a 
particle of the juice of these fruits, but are a vile and 
dirty preparation of coal tar, old cheese, etc. 

It is infinitely better to quench thirst, in warm 
weather, with good, pure water, slightly acidulated 
with lemon juice, and to drink a little at a time and 
oftener, than to swallow down a large quantity of any 
liquid, at once, and particularly beer, soda water, mead 
and similar swill. 

Alcoholic stimulants should be especially avoided 
in hot weather. Liquor no more applies digestive power 
than the lash gives strength to an exhausted animal. 

Polluted Drinking- Water. — It is a well estab- 
lished fact that water, when exposed to exhalations and 
expirations, will become so foully polluted, in a short 
time, that it is entirely unfit for drinking purposes. 
Never drink from a pitcher or pail of water after it has 
stood in a bed-room, school-room, church, or lecture 
hall for half an hour. It is surcharged wdth the 



132 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

poisonous effluvia and exhalations, of the room, even 
after the occupants are gone, to say nothing of the 
vileness which it has absorbed, when they are there. 

Many a well exists in the country the water from 
which is unsafe to drink. The water is contaminated 
through the proximity of the outhouse, which the un- 
enlightened countryman sinks near the well so that 
both may be convenient to his back door. He wants to 
"save steps,'* and so the well, the cesspool or blind 
drain, the barnyard and the pigsty are all grouped so 
conveniently together that the water of the well is sure 
to be contaminated. 




CO MM ox SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 153 



Care of the Eyes. 

On the Wearing of Glasses. — In passing along 
public thoroughfares, an observer of faces cannot fail to 
notice the large number of young persons, particularly 
girls, who wear glasses. In some cases, no doubt, 
there is a legitimate necessity for this, but, we are fully 
persuaded that in others, it is only a craze, and in many 
a positive injury. There should be no cause for wear- 
ing spectacles, except in rare exceptional cases, before 
age requires it. The Creator has made the eye right, 
these are, in most instances, the prime causes of myopy. 
just as he has made the other organs and parts of the 
body perfect. At least ninety per cent, of short-sight- 
edness is preventable ; there is, in other words, no 
necessity for it, if the eyes are properly cared for, or 
precautions taken in time. 

Work in factories, close application of the eyes in 
the school room, reading, sewing or working with im- 
perfect light and ventilation, or in too brilliant light ; 
All strainings or exertions of the eye are injurious. 
God has made the eye so that it is to see everything 
without effort, with pleasure, without strain or pain. 
We experience no pain in listening to music, . in smell- 
ing perfumes, in tasting food, why should the eye be 
pained in performing its normal work? Only when 



134 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

put to unnecessary exertion, as above stated, does it 
shrink from its work, begin to water, and suffer injury. 
This is the time to stop, and at once to change our em- 
ployment, if we would save the eye. 

Do not Hasten the Wearing of Glasses. — If, 
however, the eye has been injured, its functions im- 
paired, and near-sightedness induced, we should not 
resort to spectacles. Here is where the craze comes in. 
The doctors, of course, want to sell their wares, just as 
they are anxious to turn their pills, and get rid of them, 
if an^^one can be induced to swallow them. This is all 
wrong. Let nature, with her recuperative powers, be 
called in to do her work, before artificial means are 
resorted to. No eye glasses, no spectacle for them, 
unless you wish your children to become deformed, 
crippled, disfigured for life, as so many whom we meet 
everywhere are. Change the occupation and course of 
life, at once, and thus save the eyesight. If glasses are 
resorted to, the effect and consequence will be the same 
as when medicine is taken, opium for example. Little 
by little the dose must be increased, and the disease 
increases in proportion. The concave lens, when 
resorted to, only spoils the eye more and more, encour- 
ages the imperfect vision, instead of correcting it. 
Give the eye a chance to recuperate and correct the 
defect, by exercising it in the natural way. That is, 
remove the cause of the injury, and then exercise it to 
restore it to its normal state. Hold the object to be 
seen a little farther away, from day to day, as long as 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 135 

no pain is experienced, and thus get the natural focus 
again. Do not use glasses, unless imperatively neces- 
sary, or you will spoil your eyes so that the eyesight 
may never become normal again. 

Important Rules. — The following rules and direc- 
tions should be carefully observed for those with weak 
eyes : 

Reading by twilight ought never to be indulged in. 
A safe rule is — never read after sun-down, or before 
sun-rise. 

Do not allow yourself to read a moment in any 
reclining position, whether in bed or on a sofa. 

The practice of reading while on horseback, or in 
any vehicle in motion by wheels, is most pernicious. 

Reading on steam or sail vessels should not be 
largely indulged in, because the slightest motion of the 
page or your body alters the focal point, and requires a 
painful straining effort to readjust it. 

Never attempt to look at the sun when shining 
unless through a colored glass of some kind ; even a 
very bright moon should not be gazed at. 

The glare of the sun on water is very injurious to 
the sight. 

A sudden change between bright light and dark- 
ness is always pernicious. 

In looking at minute objects, relieve the eyes fre- 
quently by turning them to something in the distance. 

Let the light, whether natural or artificial, fall on 
the page from behind, a little to one side. 



136 COMMON SENSE HEAL Til NOTES. 

Every parent should peremptorily forbid all sewing 
by candle or gas light, especially of dark materials. 

If the eyes are matted together after sleeping, the 
most instantaneous and agreeable solvent in nature is 
the application of the saliva with the finger before 
opening the eye. Never pick it oflf with the finger 
nail, but wash it off with the ball of the fingers in 
quite warm water. 

Never bathe or open the eyes in cold water. It is 
always safest, best, and most agreeable, to use warm 
water for thai: purpose over seventy degrees. 

Never read or sew directly in front of the light, or 
window, or door. 

Never sleep so that on first awaking the eyes shall 
open on the light of a window. 

Do not use the eyesight by light so scant that it 
requires an effort to discriminate. 

Too much light creates a glare, and pains and con- 
fuses the sight. The moment you are sensible of an 
effort to distinguish, that moment cease and take a walk 
or ride. 

The moment you are instinctively prompted to rub 
the eyes, that moment cease using them. 

The eyes are frequently injured for life, when 
pupils are seated in school so as to face a window. The 
seating of pupils should alwa}'s be. in such a way as to 
face the north, on which side of the school room there 
should be no windows. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 137 



Attention to the Feet, 

Attention to Them of Great Importance.— 

It is utterly impossible to get well or keep well, unless 
the feet are kept dry and warm all the time. If they 
are for the most part cold, there is a cough or sore 
throat, or hoarseness, or sick headache, or some other 
annoyance. 

If cold and dry, the feet should be soaked in hot 
water for ten minutes every night, and when wiped and 
dried, rub into them well ten or fifteen drops of sweet 
oil ; do this patiently with the hands, rubbing the oil 
into the soles of the feet particularly. 

On getting up in the morning, dip both feet at 
once into water, as cold as the air of the room, half 
ankle deep, for a minute in summer ; half a minute or 
less in winter, rubbing one foot with the other, then 
wipe dry, and if convenient, hold them to the fire rub- 
bing them with the hand until perfectl}^ dry and warm 
in every part. 

If the feet are damp and cold, attend only to the 
morning washings, but always at night remove the 
stockings, and hold the feet to the fire, nibbing them 
with the hands for fifteen minutes, and get immediately 
into bed. 

Under any circumstances, as often as the feet are 



138 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

cold enough to attract attention, draw off the stockings, 
and hold them to the fire ; if the feet are much inclined 
to dampness, put on a pair of dry stockings, leaving the 
damp ones before the fire to be ready for another 
change. 

Some person's feet are more comfortable, even in 
winter, in cotton, others in woolen stockings. Each 
must be guided by his own feelings. Sometimes two 
pairs of thin stockings keep the feet warmer, than one 
pair which is thicker than both. The thin pair may be 
of the same or of different materials, and that which is 
best next the foot, should be determined by the feelings 
of the person. 

Boots and gaiters keep the feet damp, unclean, and 
noisome, by preventing the escape of the insensible 
perspiration and odor which are constantly emanating 
from a healthy foot ; hence the old-fashioned shoe is the 
best for health and for the strengthening of the ankles, 
by habituating it to support itself A piece of brown 
or other paper wrapped around the foot over the stock- 
ing sometimes keep the feet remarkably warm. * ' Cold 
feet" arise from the want of a vigorous circulation in 
them ; this is often remedied by putting them in hot 
water in a wooden vessel, so as to cover the toes ; in 
about ten minutes put both in cold water, the colder the 
better, of the same depth, for half a minute ; the object 
being to produce a shock, calculated to draw the warm 
blood to the soles ; this may be done on retiring and 
rising. Nothing should be considered a trouble, which 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 139 

can have even a slight tendency to keep the feet warm, 
because there never can be recovery from disease or sub- 
stantial good health without it. 

Congestion of the head, throat, or any organs of 
chest or abdomen, is relieved by a good circulation in 
the feet and legs. Being far from the vital apparatus, 
and thus liable to become cold, they are, in addition, 
kept in the coldest part of the room. During the cold 
season the air at the floor is from 15 to 20 degrees colder 
than that at the ceiling. The anxious mother shows 
her familiarity of this fact when she says : * ' Children, 
you must not lie an the floor ; you will catch cold. ' ' 

Notwithstanding this -marked difierence, the feet 
have less clothing than the body. Our chests would 
sufier in a cold day if they had but a single thickness of 
cotton and one of morocco. Warmth of the lower ex- 
tremities is indispensable to health of the head and 
chest. 

Recently we met a mechanic, who resides in our 
street, walking out on Sunday morning with his little 
two-year old daughter. The father we have often ad- 
mired for his immense and vigorous physique. He had 
on a pair of boots with soles half an inch thick. The 
little thing at his side wore a pair of red slippers, with 
soles not thicker than pasteboard. ^ ' Why do you wear 
those immense boots?" we asked. **To keep my 
throat and lungs all right, ' ' he replied. * ' Is your little 
girl well?" **She is rather poorly. The doctor says 
we must take her out in the fresh air." *^ Do you think 



140 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

you could come out this morning on this cold, damp 
walk with slippers?" we asked. "No, sir; it would 
give me my death." "How do you think your little 
delicate daughter can escape v/ith those thin morocco 
slippers ? " " Well, it does seem curious ; but I don' t 
know much about such things. You'll have to ask the 
old woman. ' ' 

The usual dress of children's feet, during the cold 
season, is a shameful violation of physiological law. 

Parents and teachers cannot exercise too much care 
in inspecting the feet of children, when they have been 
out on the damp ground. Do not allow them to sit, 
even for a half minute, in the school room, or in the 
house at home, with damp stockings. Remember, life 
and health are at stake, and they are too precious to be 
risked for the want of a little attention. Either have 
damp stockings exchanged for dry warm ones, or if this 
cannot be done, dry the feet at the fire at once. 

Get heavy soled shoes for your wife and children, 
and such as will keep out dampness. We, gentlemen, 
would catch cold, and die of consumption, within a 
year, if we should attempt to wear the thin paper-soled 
shoes, which our wives and daughters and children 
wear. 

What a good thing it is that they are stronger and 
healthier, and better able to withstand untoward nature 
than we, their liege lords ! 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 141 



Fetid Feet. 

To have bod odored feet is a misfortune, and a 
source of very great mortification to the refined and sen- 
sitive. It may be ^ ' born ' ' with some, with others, if 
not all, it is the result of a diseased condition of the 
system, or of a neglect of personal cleanliness. There 
is a peculiar odor emanating from the feet which is, 
perhaps, always the result of uncleanliness. If daily 
washings do not remove these odors, a very efficient 
wash is found in red oxide of lead, one part, to twenty- 
nine parts of the liquor of the sub-acetate of lead ; the 
first to be bruised in a porcelain mortar, gradually add- 
ing the latter ; apply a few drops once a week, oftener 
in summer. 

Wash the Feet Often. — Very many do not wash 
their feet oftener than once during a month ; only a few 
as often as once a week. The feet ought to be washed 
every night before going to bed, and no stocking, boot, 
or shoe should be put on a second time, until it has had 
a whole day's sunning, at least by those who have an 
ambition to be and feel as sweet and clean as a dew-drop 
on the rose of summer. Or put two tablespoons of the 
compound spirits of ammonia (hartshorn) in a basin 
of water, and wash the face, hands, arms, armpits and 
feet with it, and the skin is left fresh, clean and sweet. 
It is perfectly harmless, and costs very little. 



142 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES, 

A radical treatment for excessive perspiration of the 
feet, accompanied with offensive odor, is to discard all 
shoes previously worn ; then, with thin Scotch wool 
stockings, low shoes should be procured, and, if the 
weather is cold, the ankles should be protected with cloth 
gaiters. Every night, after bathing the feet with cold 
water, powdered starch or magnesia should be rubbed 
well into them, and it is well to sleep in thin socks into 
which either of these powders has been sifted. It may 
be necessary, also, to sift the powders into the stockings 
worn during the day. 






COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 143 



Cold Feet. 

Physiology and Hygiene. — No complaint is 
more general than that of cold feet, and yet it ought not 
to be so. Blood is the warming element of our bodies. 
Where it circulates freely there is warmth. In accor- 
dance with the principles of philosophy and physiology, 
the circulation ought to be greatest in the lower extrem- 
ities, and, consequently, the most heat there. Why is 
this not the case? Examine your shriveled and dried 
up feet, and the question is readily answered. lyook at 
your toes. They are compressed and crippled appen- 
dages, well nigh dead. The reason of this unnatural- 
ness is that the feet are kept, not in shoes, but in boxes 
which impede the flow of blood, and press out every 
particle of fluid. 

The feet of a small child are round, fleshy, soft. 
They are as warm as other parts of the body. This is 
quite natural. They are full of muscles and the blood 
vessels are surrounded with fatty cushions, from which 
the fluids have not yet been expressed. As soon as the 
little one is able to walk its feet are pressed out of shape, 
and the blood circulation is hemmed, by stockings and 
tight shoes. Now the era of cold feet is inaugurated. 
Stockings are presumed to give the feet warmth, where- 
as, heat comes from the body itself. The tight covering 



144 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

of the foot not only compresses it and checks the circu- 
lation, which creates warmth, but the effete exhalation 
of the foot is prevented from passing off. The feet per- 
spire, and become effeminate, susceptible to cold. The 
thicker the stockings, the heavier the shoes and over- 
shoes, the more the warmth of the body, which nature 
supplies, is emasculated. 

Why are your feet cold ? Because you have com- 
pressed them unmercifully, and forced them out of their 
natural shape, you wear heavy stockings and shoes, 
with the expectation that these can generate heat, 
whereas your circulatory system must do it, your diges- 
tive organs are not performing their functions, and you 
are suffering from diseases of the stomach and abdomen. 

The author wears thin, low shoes all winter, with 
plenty of room in them for the feet, and thin stockings. 
He often rides twenty and thirty miles in the cold, in 
midwinter, and never has cold feet. 

Wash and rub the feet daily and exercise them 
abundantly, and you will have warm feet. But, how 
shall the feet be exercised, so as to become warm ? In 
addition to brisk walking, jumping and running, feet 
gymnastic exercises are excellent. Elevate the foot 
slightly and describe a circle by its motion. Do this 
fifteen or twenty times, and your foot will become 
warmed, and inspire with new life. Take a stick and 
strike the sole of the shoe briskly. If you are taking a 
ride in the cold, wrap several sheets of tissue paper 
around the feet, and draw the stockings over. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 145 

Rubber over-shoes should always be worn when it 
is damp or slushy under foot, never at any other time. 
Leather is made so treacherously poor now, that ordinary 
shoes are not water-proof, and gum over-shoes have be- 
come a necessity ; but they are a nuisance and an injury 
to the feet, if worn in dry weather, however cold it may 
be, and if kept on in the house. They injure the feet, 
and should be promptly removed, the moment a person 
enters a room. Teachers must never allow children to 
keep rubbers on the feet in the school-room. 

Gum shoes, having no iron nails in them are highly 
injurious to health, as they are non-conductors of elec- 
tricity, insulating the wearer. In some localities the 
school authorities have prohibited the use of them. 






146 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 



The Ears. 

" Picking the Bars '* is a most mischievous prac- 
tice. In attempting to do this one has many a time 
pierced the drum and made it as useless as a pierced 
india rubber life preserver. Nothing sharper or harder 
than the end of the little finger, with the nail paired, 
ought to be introduced into the ear, unless by a physi- 
cian. Persons are often seen endeavoring to remove the 
^' wax'* of the ear with the head of a pin. This ought 
never to be done, first, because it not only endangers 
the rupture of the ear by being pushed too far in, but if 
not so far, it may grate against the drum, excite inflam- 
mation and an ulcer which will finally eat all the parts 
away, especially of a scrofulous constitution ; second, 
hard substances have often slipped in, and caused the 
necessity of painful, dangerous and expensive operations 
to fish or cut out. The wax is manufactured by nature 
to guard the entrance from dust, insects and unmodified 
cold air, and when it has subserv^ed its purpose it be- 
comes dry, scaly, light and in this condition is easily 
pushed outside, by new formations of wax within. Oc- 
casionally wax may harden and may interfere with the 
hearing ; but when this is the case, it is the part of wis- 
dom to consult a physician and let him decide what is 
the matter and v/hat the remedy. If one can not be 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 147 

had, the only safe plan is to let fall into the ear three or 
four drops of tepid water, night and morning ; the saliva 
is better still, for it is softer and more penetrating, but 
glycerine is far preferable to either ; it is one of the 
blandest fluids in nature and very rapidly penetrates the 
hardened wax, cools the parts and restores them to a 
healthful condition. If in a week, there is not a decided 
improvement in the hearing, medical advice ought to be 
had at once, as next to the eye, the ear is the most deli- 
cate organ of the body. 

Boxing" is an inexcusable brutality ; many a child 
has been made deaf for life by it, because the **drum of 
the ear " is a membrane, as thin as paper, stretches like 
a curtain just inside the external entrance of the ear. 
There is nothing but air just behind it and any violent 
concussion is liable to rend it in two, and the *' hear- 
ing ' ' is destroyed forever, because the sense of hearing 
is caused by the vibrations of this drum or ' * Tympa- 
num.** 



148 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Exercise. 

Bad weather is no excuse for not going to pay a 
debt ; it is no excuse to the faithful Christian for being 
absent from worship. The same is the case with exer- 
cise. Moderate, daily exercise in the open air, is worth 
a thousand times more than all medicines. The ex- 
ercise must, however, be regular, regardless of the 
weather. If exercise is needed at all, it is necessary in 
rain and cold and heat. Weeatin all weather, so must 
we exercise. The very energy and moral courage which 
enable a man to take out-door exercise, regardless of the 
weather, is of itself a means for the cure even of serious 
diseases. 

The Weather Should be no Obstacle to taking 
out-door exercise, but the clothing and protection of the 
feet must be in accordance with the weather. Colds are 
are not caught by going out regularly, even into all 
kinds of weather, provided the body is properly pro- 
tected, but they are caught by sitting in heated, unven- 
tilated rooms, and then an occasional exposure. Even 
the consumptive, who exerts himself, and takes regular, 
careful exercise, going into all kinds of weather, will 
live, while, if he shuts himself up in his hot room, and 
sinks into his rocking chair, he will die in a short time. 
What is true of the consumptive and sickly is doubly 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 149 

true of the well. As long and as regularly as we eat we 
must take exercise, to work oflf the effete particles. 

Taking such deaths within a few years as those of 
Grant, Matt Carpenter, Zach Chandler, Hancock, Hen- 
dricks, Arthur, McClellan, Logan, David Davis, Gen. 
Miller, Vanderbilt, and many less prominent but widely 
known men, and it may be ascertained that their deaths 
were due to high living and sedentary habits. Logan 
was not rich, and therefore could not give many din- 
ners ; but he was powerful, or promised to be so, and he 
was a favorite with people who could give dinners, and 
he suffered in consequence. To those who give and to 
those who accept too much eating and drinking are 
equally unfortunate. 

The world laughs at Gladstone, chopping down his 
almost daily tree at Hawarden, as a crank, but in con- 
sequence of tree chopping and other healthful exercise 
Gladstone is a power in the world at eighty years of 
age ; and Emperor Wilhelm, who took his daily horse- 
back exercise, was a very healthy old boy at ninety. 

How many eighty-year-old able bodied men in pub- 
lic life have we in the United States ? Washington 
living and the packing of heavy dinners here and there 
about the country uses Americans up at a time when 
English statesmen are at their best. Bancroft, the his- 
torian, was over four score when he died, but he took 
his daily long walks, for over twenty years. But Amer- 
icans with the physical qualities of Bancroft are scarce. 

What our prominent and well-to-do people need is 



150 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

temperance in eating, and an abundance but not excess 
of exercise. More of plain bread, beef and tea, and less 
of turtle, oysters and wine ; more of active exercise and 
less sedentary occupations ; more of walking and less of 
carriage riding, and so better health and longer lives. 
One thing more they should observe : The design of 
nature was to make eating and drinking a benefit, not a 
detriment, to the body ; and according to that wise pro- 
hibition, cheap food, which is the most easily obtained, 
is the best food, so that it be not foul nor corrupt with 
decay or adulteration before being taken into the sys- 
tem. The man who attempts to eat out his income 
after it passes a reasonable sum will find his great in- 
come a barrier to his happiness and a standing menace 
against his life. What he and all such should do is 
to live moderately and exercise freely. 

Hard Work Never Killed Any One. — It is the 
abuse of hard work that is guilty of so many murders. 
The commonest malady which breaks men down nowa- 
days is, we are told, overwork. But when we come to 
analyze it, we find that the overwork of the doctors and 
the hard work of real life are very diflferent things 
indeed. 

Overwork, in its medical meaning, is a violent 
abuse of the mental and physical powers. Men subject 
themselves to great physical and mental strains in order 
to accomplish certain ends. They strive to ofiset or re- 
place the natural decay of their forces by artificial 
means, they live unnatural lives, seeking stimulus and 



C02IM0N SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 151 

relaxation in excitement when they should find them in 
calm exercise and sedate repose, and in time a crash 
comes and they succumb to overwork ! 

Meanwhile the hard workers, of whom the world is 
full, go on laboring and living far into green old age. 
They put nature to the test, but they do not outrage 
her. They do not bolster exhaustion up with dissipa- 
tion, or replace nature by art. They perform more 
labor in the same length of time than the overwork of 
any of their rivals perfect, and are only unhappy and 
unhealthy when they are idle, and their blood runs slug- 
gish for want of exercise. 

Health Improved by Work. — A stor>^ with a pa- 
thetic leaning has appeared in a recent issue of a lead- 
ing newspaper, (says the Medical Record\ detailing the 
case of a rich invalid lady who vv^as suddenly reduced to 
poverty, and whose changed condition demanded the 
performance of her ovvu household duties. As if, how- 
ever, to prove that all evil is not unmixed with good, 
we are informed that by the forced exercise of her new 
functions at the washtub, the ironing-board and the 
cooking-range, she became strong, her aches disap- 
peared, and her sleep was sound and refreshing. Al- 
though it was extremely sad that the calamity of forced 
work should have fallen upon such a delicacy of fem- 
ininity as- possessed by the unfortunate subject of this 
healthful moral, all of her friends stand ready to con- 
gratulate her on the change so radically wrought. 



152 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Influenza or Grippe. 

Not a New Thing. — We never had it, never ex- 
pect to get it, but we have seen so much of it, that we 
feel competent to give some advice. The grippe is 
possibly only an old disease under a new name. It 
was formerly known as influenza. 

Hippocrates recorded the first authentic account 
of an epidemic of influenza, in the year 420 B. C, 
and eight years later another invaded the Athenian 
armies. The first well authenticated records however, 
are of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, since 
which time there have been frequent visitations. The 
ancients supposed the epidemic to occur in cycles 
of 100 years. The epidemic of 1832 originated in 
China, and 1836 prevailed in Europe, and reached 
this country in a mild form in 1843 ^^^ again in 
1847, both visitations probably being a continuation 
of the epidemic of 1832. Stephen Girard died from 
the effects of it in 1833. We say from the effects of 
it, for, in itself this disease is not likely to prove 
fatal. It is, however, frequently followed by, or 
runs into pneumonia, consumption or similar diseases. 
The constitution of those who are attacked by it is 
already somewhat weakly, or else becomes enervated 
under it. In this condition the system is easily in- 
vaded by kindred diseases, which prove serious. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 153 

To raw spring weather, which continued with 
scarcely an interruption, may be largely attributed the 
prevalence of this unusually fatal malady, whose attack 
in the primary stage so nearly resembles an ordinary 
influenza as to give little apprehension of its dangerous 
character. We confess to but scanty knowledge of this 
strange malady. It would seem to make its main attack 
upon the weaker and more impaired organs or mem- 
bers of the afflcted. The brain, heart, lungs, liver, 
kidneys, do not escape, if sufFering from any chronic 
weakness. Sometimes the' point of attack is in the 
joints of the limbs, accompanied with severe pains and 
inordinate weakness. Then again the whole nervous 
system is assailed. Its ravages are so swift that death 
is oftentimes near without being suspected. The wisest 
treatment is found to be careful home nursing, under 
the direction of a skillful physician, with sufficient 
foresight to assist nature in her efforts to overcome dis- 
ease without paralyzing her energies by a too free use 
of drugs. 

The disease commences with a shivering, or a feel- 
ing of coldness down the spine, with a hot, dry skin, 
quick pulse, thirst and headache. Sometimes these 
symptoms come on suddenly, sometimes they develop 
slowly in two or three days. If they come on suddenly, 
intense frontal headache, with aching pains over the 
■eyes, is generally the first symptom. 

The symptoms of the disease are similar to those 
of a bad cold, chilliness, headache, etc., followed by 



154 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

high fever, and aching of the bones. It has also been 
called ' ' bone break fever. ' ' The plant called ' ' bone 
set ' ' derives its name hence, since the tea prepared from 
this herb was used among the older people as a remedy. 

Nostrums will not Cure it. — Our observation 
has been that no nostrum, not even whisky, however 
highly recommended its use may be, as a preventive or 
curative agent, by those who are fond of it, will ward 
it off. Neither will asafoetida, onions, camphor, nor 
any drug. Nevertheless, the ounce of prevention is 
always the best, and what is that? First, and above 
all else, maintain a high state of health. The robust 
are seldom attacked by it. In exceptional cases, it is 
true, the strong and healthful are attacked, but this is 
not the rule. The weakly, the aged, children and those 
predisposed to frequent attacks of sickness, usually be- 
come victims of the grippe. Here, as in other diseases, 
the remark holds, that some persons seem to be 
*' attacked by every complaint that goes around." The 
explanation is that there is a predisposition offered by 
an emasculated constitution. 

Build up tlie System. — How can a high state of 
health be maintained or attained ? By building up the 
system, and observing the laws of health. Several 
things are necessary to this end, and, among these may 
be named a temperate life, regular habits, wholesome 
food and plenty of it, daily exercise, avoiding unneces- 
sary exposure, etc. The opposite of this, intemperate 
eating and drinking, and especially improper articles of 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 155 

diet and drink, such as much fat, sweetmeats, condi- 
ments, alcoholic stimulants, etc. ; indulging the appetite 
at unsuitable hours, keeping late hours, robbing oneself 
of rest and sleep, turning night into day, exposure, 
particularly over-exertion, over-heating and sudden' cool- 
ing, sitting in a draught, throwing off the clothing, etc. ; 
these are the fruitful sources of this and other sickness. 

When these few simple suggestions are observed, 
experience has taught us, in our own case, and hun- 
dreds of others brought to our notice, a person with a 
healthy frame is reasonably secure from attacks of the 
grippe. If, however, you become subject to it notwith- 
standing the precautions, go to bed, and remain in it, 
and in a warm room, until relieved. Do not force your- 
self out too soon. Eat all the wholesome food which 
your stomach will digest. Send for a physician and 
follow his advice. 

Keeping rooms well warmed and ventilated is the 
best protection against it. The remedy is the same as 
that for a cold. 



156 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 



How to Aid the Injured. 

In Case of Accidents. — Dr. Rush wrote more 
than a hundred years ago, that it is every teacher's 
duty to instruct children what to do in case of an 
accident, and that no child should be permitted to 
come to school, even a single term, without being 
drilled in how to furnish aid in case of an emergency. 
It is very important to instruct children, even at 
home, when they are yet small, how to maintain 
their presence of mind, so that in an accident, they 
can render efficient assistance. Not a moment should 
be lost, as a few minutes, in many cases, may involve 
a precious life. 

An external hemorrhage can be stopped by mak- 
ing a tourniquet, by tying a handkerchief around the 
part of the body where the severed artery is, and 
twisting the handkerchief with a stick. Internal 
hemorrhage of the lungs or stomach can be stopped 
by laying cold cloths on the breast or abdomen. 
Cold water is the first remedy for a bruise, afterward 
laudanum may be applied with advantage. 

When children get peas or shoe buttons in their 
ears or noses, a pair of pincers should be used to pull 
them cTut. A bit of meat lodged in the throat can 
be plucked out with the thumb or fore-finger, and a 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 157 

hard substance, such as a marble, may be forced out 
by vigorous slaps on the back, which expel the air 
from the chest through the throat, and the air carries 
with it the marble. When this treatment fails, the 
patient may be stood on the head with advantage. 

Splints may be extemporised for a broken limb. 
The limb must be first bared by cutting away the 
clothing. A bit of flannel is laid next to the skin, 
then a stick or the substitute for the splint, is pressed 
upon it by bandaging, beginning from below. In 
the case of a compound fracture, which is when the 
broken bone has forced its way through the skin, a 
warm wet cloth must be laid over the skin before the 
splint is applied. 

If an individual is endowed with common sense 
and can exercise self-control when necessary, a slight 
knowledge of physiology will enable him to act in 
an emergency. 

When an Artery is Cut. — A boy is brought 
home with a severe cut on his arm. The blood spurts 
out of the wound showing that an artery has been 
severed. It is fortunate if a member of the family 
can come forward and bind two pieces of cloth around 
the limb directly above and below the wound; the 
blood will cease to flow, and even if there should 
be unavoidable delay in the arrival of the doctor, 
he will be able to save a life that would certainly 
have been sacrificed if the prompt treatment men- 
tioned had not been resorted to. Precious moments 



158 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

have been lost while * ^waiting for the doctor'* who, 
when he does arrive, frequently finds the patient be- 
yond mortal aid. 

Rusty nails make ugly wounds, which, if not 
attended to at once may cause great suffering — per- 
haps death. Smoke the wound with wool or woolen 
cloth; fifteen minutes in the smoke will remove the 
worst class of inflammation. 

Burns. — The terrible pain caused by being 
severely burned may be almost instantly relieved by 
applying a mixture of strong, fresh lime water mixed 
with as much linseed oil as it will cut. Before 
applying, wrap the burn in cotton wadding saturated 
with the lotion. Wet as often as it appears dry, 
without removing the cotton from the burn for nine 
days, when a new skin will probably have formed. 

When One's Clothes Take Fire.— The instant 
one's clothing takes fire the best thing to do is to at 
once lie down and roll over and over, seizing the near- 
est rug, cloak, strip of carpet, quilt or blanket to wrap 
around the body and smother the flame. This quickly 
done will put out the fire. The immediate application 
of water occurs to every one where water is accessible. 
After the flames are extinguished cover the parts 
burned with lime water and oil (either linseed oil, olive 
or lard oil), mixed equally, using linen or muslin 
that is wringing wet. Do not remove the cloths; 
keep them wet by pouring the mixture upon them. 

Burns, blistered skin, sores, chapped hands and 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 159 

even diphtheria and croup may be healed by the ap- 
plication of glycerine. Glycerine is the essence of oil, 
and when applied, permeates the body, even penetrating 
the solid bone. It is one of Ijie best applications 
known. The hands should be washed in soap and 
warm water, on going to bed, a little glycerine rubbed 
into them. 

Bites and stings of insects, such as mosquitos, 
wasps, bees, flies, midges and even snakes, are often 
cured by washing the parts freely with a strong solu- 
tion of aqua ammonia (hartshorn). 

Sunstroke is prevented^ by wearing a silk hand- 
kerchief in the crown of the hat, or green leaves, or a 
wet cloth. Those who are compelled to be out in the 
hot sun at mid-day should eat but little meat, and live 
on coarse bread, fruit and berries, and have abundant 
sleep. Wash the scalp in cold water several times a 
day, and keep the surface of the body clean by rubbing 
it with a damp towel every night before going to bed. 

For Frost Bites and Freezing. — When feet or 
hands have been so chilled as to be almost frozen, 
gradually warm them by first rubbing with snow or 
plunging the injured part into ice water or other cold 
liquid. Never bring a person to the fire until the 
frozen part is thawed. If a person is unconscious from 
cold, remove the clothing quickly and rub all over 
briskly (always rub toward the heart) with a fresh 
brush or the hand enveloped in a mitten, piece of flan- 
nel or woolen cloth. Artificial respiration must be 



160 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

tried — that is, lifting the arms from the sides of the 
body to the back and top of the head and bring them 
down again to the sides. As quickly as the patient can 
swallow give him a teaspoonful of brandy or whisky 
in hot water every fifteen minutes and then put him 
in bed well wrapped up and protected from chilling by 
placing hot water bottles or bags at the armpits, feet 
and back. 

A kind of cushion of powdered ice kept to the 
entire scalp, has allayed violent inflammations of the 
brain and arrested fearful convulsions induced by too 
much blood there. 

All inflammations, internal or external, are 
promptly subdued by the application of ice, or ice- wa- 
ter, because it is converted into steam and rapidly 
conveys away the extra heat, and also diminishes the 
quantity of blood in the vessels of the part. 

A piece of ice laid on the wrist will often arrest 
violent bleeding of the nose. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 161 



Headache. 

Causes.— This distressing complaint results from 
varied causes. Overdoing, overeating, overheating, 
lack of sleep, get the nerves of the stomach in a state 
of rebellion. In many cases there is a cure. Pre- 
vention by a careful diet and proper rest, is the wisest 
course. A little good baking soda in water often gives 
prompt reliet, or powdered charcoal, two teaspoons in 
half a glass of water. 

Sick Headache.— Sick headacne is sickness at 
stomach, combined with pain of the head, generally on 
the left side. It is caused by an over-abundance of 
bile in the stomach. The causes of too much bile are : 
insufficiency of exercise to work it off, late suppers, 
heavy meals, indigestible food, eating too much of a 
favorite dish, over-fatigue, great mental emotion or 
severe mental application. The latter is frequently the 
cause of it among school children, especially when they 
sit in school with damp feet. A difficult lesson, hurry 
to work out a lesson, worriment over a problem or 
knotty question frequently cause headache of pupils. 
Irritation, being bothered with a recitation, a trouble- 
some noisy school, especially on a dull day, causes the 
headaches of teachers. 

As in every other disease, so in headache troubles. 



162 C OMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 

an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. 
Avoid the causes. Do not overload the stomach. Bat 
food which is easily digested. Take plenty of exercise 
and fresh air. Avoid constipation. Preserve an equa- 
nimity of mind and temper. 

To get rid of a headache, originating from the 
stomach, the best thing to be done is to empty the 
stomach. Anybody can do this, when there is nausea, 
by reaching into the throat with the finger. A less 
heathenish way is to take a glass of warm water and 
stir into it a tablespoonful each of kitchen mustard and 
salt. Vomiting will always follow this experiment in 
less than two minutes. The headache will be gone 
after a short rest or nap. 

In a school-room, the most violent headache can be 
cured, by opening the windows and introducing fresh 
air, or by sending the pupil out of doors, for ten min- 
utes, to inhale pure air. 

One in authority says : ' ' Sick headache is often 
periodical, and is the signal of distress which the stom- 
ach puts up to inform us that there is an over-alkaline 
condition of its fluids ; that it needs a natural acid to 
restore the battery to its normal working condition. 
When the first symptoms of a headache appear, take a 
teaspoon of lemon juice clear, fifteen minutes before 
each meal, and the same dose at bed time ; follow this 
up until all symptoms are passed, and if not an excep- 
tional case you will soon go free from your unwelcome 
visitor. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 163 

A teaspoonful of finely powdered charcoal in a 
half a glass of warm water gives marked relief, as 
it absorbs the gases produced by fermentation of 
undigested food. 

Headache almost always yields to the simulta- 
neous application of hot water to the feet and back 
of the neck. 

A Few Hints for the Benefit of Nervous and 
Over-worked People. — The radical, permanent cure 
for sick headache in weak, nervous women must 
combine the following: 

A general toning up of the system. 

Regularity of the habits. 

Plenty of sleep at the right time. 

A powerful exercise of the will to keep up a 
cheerful, quiet, easy frame of mind. 

As to immediate relief there is nothing better 
than this method. 

Get your druggist to make for you a strong 
solution of : 

Menthol, half ounce. Alcohol, one fluid ounce. Mix. 

For external application, use this tincture full 
strength. Paint it right over the pain. Then take 
half a glass of hot water and add from three to ten 
drops of the tincture, inhale the fumes until it 
cools off, so that you can drink it, and remember 
that it should be taken as hot as possible. 

The Brain Worker's Headache. — There is an- 
other headache which comes from unusual exhaustion 



364 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

and is terribly acute. It is ttie headache of the 
brain worker. 

It can always be stopped, however, by taking 
a fair dose, say six grains, of quinine at bedtime 
and a good night's sleep. 

Then too we have the traveler's headache; even 
this may be avoided. 

First, do not work yourself up into a nervous 
frenzy of hurry by trying to do a thousand and one 
things and then rush to catch a train. 

Do not worry all the way to the station about 
the things you have left undone. 

An excellent plan is to take a few raisins in 
your pocket and eat them when you feel tired or 
relaxed. Raisins are peculiar, and while I would 
not advise you to eat many on ordinary occasions — 
they are indigestible — still they will give an empty 
stomach plenty of work; and their stimulant effect 
upon a tired, exhausted person is quick, effective 
and pronounced. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 165 



(4 



Heart Failure." 



The Heart's Work.— We almost daily see re^ 
ports of deaths attributed to heart failure. Now, what 
I wish to ask is, what is it the heart fails to do? I 
have always considered the heart the most perfect organ 
of the animal economy, and one that never shirks its 
duty. It commences its labor during the early stages 
of pregnancy, and goes on until the last moment of life, 
without one second^ s rest, night or day, often without 
the intermission of a single pulsation for loo years or 
more. At every beat it propels two ounces of blood 
through its structure. At 75 pulsations per minute, 
nine pounds of blood is sucked in and pumped out. 
Every hour, 540 pounds; every day, 12,960 pounds; 
every year, 4,730,400 pounds; every 100 years, 473,- 
040,000 pounds. Verily a good organ and all per- 
formed without one moment's rest. 

The Heart's Neighbor. — Now, the heart has the 
meanest and most contemptible neighbor that ever an 
organ had, namely, the stomach ; a drunkard, a glutton, 
a trespasser, and almost everything else that is bad. 
Verily, it ought to be walled in and compelled to keep 
on its own grounds. 

The stomach lies directly under the heart, with 
only the diaphragm between, and when it fills with gas 
it is like a small balloon, and lifts up till it interferes 
directly with the heart's action. The stomach never 



166 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

generates gas, but when filled with undigested food 
fermentation takes place and gas is formed, and the 
interference depends upon the amount of gas in the 
stomach. To overcome this construction the heart has 
to exert itself in proportion to the interference, more 
blood is sent to the brain, and the following symptoms 
are the result : A dizzy head, a flushed face, a loss of 
sight, spots or blurs before the eyes, flashes of light, 
zigzag lines or chains, etc., often followed by the most 
severe headache. These symptoms are usually relieved 
when the gas is expelled from the stomach. 

Now, when this upward pressure upon the heart 
becomes excessive, more dangerous symptoms super- 
vene, a larger quantity of blood is sent to the brain, 
some vessel ruptures and a blood clot in the brain is the 
result, and the patient dies of apoplexy, or, if he lives, 
is a cripple for lif 

When a sick person, or an old one, or one with 
feeble digestion sleeps, digestion is nearly or quite sus- 
pended, but fermentation goes on, and gas is generated 
as before stated. 

A man is found dead in bed, and the medical at- 
tendant pronounces it the result of heart failure, and 
such is the certificate of burial given. Now, the man 
was out, partook of a late supper, and ate roast beef, 
turkey, chicken, lobsters, oysters, mince pie, plum 
pudding, ice cream, cake, an orange, nuts and raisins, 
three or four cups of coffee, etc., went home at mid- 
night, retires and dies of heart failure before nine 
o'clock the next morning. What did the heart fail to do ? 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 167 



House Cleaning. 

Should Include Unseen Places. — ^When hot 
weather is suddenly coming upon us, is the time to see 
that refuse substances be removed ; if they have been 
allowed to accumulate in cellar, garret, back yard, or 
anywhere else. The civilization and sanitary condition 
of a household are not to be adjudged by the surface 
and front door and yard appearance, but by what is 
behind and underneath. The German proverb, oben 
Hut tend unten Ffui^ is too often applicable to the state 
of modern fashionable society. Too often it is show 
rather than use. The front rooms and parlors are but 
little occupied, kept for show only. The best bed room 
is kept in scrupulously neat condition to be occupied 
once in six months, while the room where the children 
sleep and which is most in use, is left to take care of 
itself The parlor is closed as carefully as a prison, 
barred doors and shutters, and not a ray of light, nor a 
breath of fresh air permitted tp enter from Monday 
morning till Saturday night. Costly fences are put up 
along the street. Everything is in * ' apple pie ' ' order 
where no member of the family is ever allowed to enter, 
but the premises where they spend ninety nine one- 
hundredths of their time when at home, is often liter- 
ally unfit for occupancy by human beings. Back lots 



168 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

have beeii neglecteu for years, where masses of reeking 
filth give out emanations as noxious as any sewer gas. 
Yet right around these lots many people live day and 
night, — in summer time with doors and windows open, 
breathing the air thus fouled all the time. In many 
instances these premises, from long continued neglect, 
have become so foul that no ordinary surface scavenger 
will avail. The soil is saturated with filth to the depth 
often or twelve inches, and should be removed bodily, 
or else thoroughly disinfected. 

Very often, however, great improvement can be 
made by removing rubbish, garbage, and other surface 
accumulations. All this work should be done at once. 
Thus when the hot weather sets in, nothing more will 
be needed than daily care in preventing daily accumula- 
tions. 

Always and everywhere at this beautiful season 
must be urged the supreme importance of cleanliness, 
and the beneficial influence of fresh air and sunshine all 
in and around our living and sleeping rooms. God has 
given us a paradise. Too often we make it a pest- 
house. 

I/OOk to the Cellars. — Not one cellar in fifty is as 
clean and dry as it should be. Old barrels, boxes, 
casks, bottles, ashes, remnants of wilted and rotting po- 
tatoes, turnips and other vegetables are found therein. 
The gases arising from these, which, sometimes can be 
recognized by their bad smell through the entire house 
and even in the yard and street, but when most danger- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES 169 

ous are odorless, cause the worst forms of typhoid and 
other malignant fevers. These gases which always rise 
from the cellar, penetrate the crevices of the flooring, 
and are confined in the unventilated, unaired parlors 
and chambers, especially the sleeping rooms on the 
highest floors. From these considerations the cellar 
should be the cleanest apartment of every house. On 
these beautiful May days when all nature is attired in 
her best, sweetest and cleanest, every cellar should be 
thoroughly cleaned and sweetened. Every avenue of 
grating, door and window should be left open day and 
night for at least a week. The doors, walls, ceilings 
or joists should be swept several times ; the walls and 
ceilings whitewashed with two or three coats ; the floor 
well washed and rinsed with water, and unslacked lime 
or powdered charcoal liberally scattered, so as to absorb 
all odors arising from moist or dark places. 

Kitchens. — The sun should shine into the kitchen 
the greatest part of the day, and into the back-yard or 
rear of the kitchen, nine hours of every twelve of day- 
light, every day, at this time of the year. There should 
be no spot about the house to receive or hold standing 
water, whether it be the rain from the sky, the contents 
of the wash-basin, the slop-bowl, or the water pail, nor 
should any of these, or any other vessels containing 
liquids, be emptied into the yard. No civilized person 
should ever be found guilty of doing such acts. The 
kitchen sinks, and places where dishes are washed and 
cooking is done,- should be scrupulously and conscien- 



170 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

tiously cleaned, scrubbed, dried and deodorized with 
fine charcoal, daily. Health, comfort and a relishing 
appetite depend largely on these things. 

Dining-room carpets receive a great deal in the 
debris of food. It is carried about in the air, and 
in combination with vapor, attaches itself to woolen 
and cotton textures of every kind, to paper hangings, 
to whatever will absorb moisture. A house whose 
entry smells musty is dangerous. Avoid it. Don*t 
live in it. Keep your children out of it. 

Back Yards. — Diseases of various kinds no 
doubt, frequently arise from filth and dirt which is 
permitted to accumulate in back yards. The slops 
of the kitchen are poured out into the yard breeding 
malaria, fever and diphtheria.. Besides if there is 
a well within fifty feet of the spot, where these 
slops and refuse matter are thrown, the poison will 
eventually permeate the ground and defile the water, 
proving a fruitful source of typhoid fever. 

Children and young people should be taught 
to be cleanly, as cleanliness is promotive of health 
and morality. To keep the front yard clean, and 
allow the back yard to be filthy and unpresentable, 
is to encourage deception and hypocrisy, two of the 
worst forms of immorality. Even down to the 
blacking of shoes, children should be taught, that 
to blacken only the front and neglect the back part 
of the shoe, is Phariseeism and destructive of honesty. 

Therefore, from the heel of the shoe to the back 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 171 

yard of the house, insist on cleanliness, neatness and 
healthfulness. 

Have a hogshead or large box fitted np in one 
corner of the yard, and make it a rule to throw 
into this old cans, boots broken dishes, and all such 
rubbish, and when there is a great accumulation, to 
bury or burn it. Do not allow anything to be 
thrown about. Have drains made to convey all slops 
entirely away from the house. 

An ounce of prevention is better than a ton of 
cure. It is vastly easier to avoid sickness than to 
cure disease after it has invaded the household, and 
infinitely cheaper. Do your duty in attending to 
the principles of hygiene. Do not saddle your faults 
indiscretions, neglects and sins on Providence. Trust 
in God but also keep your powder dry. 

To purify gutters, sinks, hog pens etc., use 
one pound of copperas, (sulphate of iron or green 
vitriol) in four gallons of water, poured over three 
or four times. It will remove all unpleasant odors. 



172 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Health. 

Why Some are not Healthy. — In our inter- 
course with different classes of people, following 
different occupations, we find that those who are subject 
to ailments and complaints are the rule, while those 
who are entirely healthy are the exceptions. Why 
should this be so, and is it necessarily so ? Why people 
are unhealthy may in very many instances be explained. 
Some are unhealthy because they choose to follow occu- 
pations which are injurious to their health. In our 
travels through the West recently, we found that it was 
almost impossible to hire female help. This is to a 
certain extent also the case in the East. Many girls 
have imbibed the false notion that it is degrading to do 
house and kitchen work, and others conceive the idea 
that factory work pays better. Both are delusions. It 
should require no argument to show that house work is 
honorable. It does not pay better to engage in factory 
work, tailoring, cigarmaking, etc. House and kitchen 
work, and such outdoor exercise as belongs to it are 
healthful, and for this reason it pays best. Doctor bills 
and a broken down constitution do not pay. We pass 
dozens of pale-paced, crooked-spined girls on their way 
to and from the factories every day, when going to our 
office. Fifty per cent, of these girls will be in their 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 173 

graves, the victims of consumption, in less than twenty- 
years, before they have half outlived the days assigned 
to them by their great Creator. Fifty per cent, of those 
who may not die an untimely death will turn thin, 
haggard, crabbed old maids, whom nobody will want to 
marry, or if married they will become peevish, painy, 
sickly wives, who can never fulfil their great Creator's 
design. Does it pay to lose health and beauty, in this 
way, when the remedy is at hand ? 

Again, farmers and their wives and daughters are 
often unhealthy. It should not be so, for farming is a 
most healthful occupation, yet how few farmers does 
one meet who do not have their aches and complaints. 
The young farmer's wife is not enjoying good health, 
even the girls and boys have constant ailments, so that 
it is difficult to find a farmer's house where some one 
not is complaining. 

Farmer^ s Health and Overwork. — Much of this 
ill health of farmer's families is attributable to over- 
work; Farmer's families do not sleep enough. Eight 
hours sleep is not too much for a hard worker. The 
eight hour law is a dead letter with the farmer. He 
works fourteen. This is too much. He allows him- 
self no rest, nor recreation during the week, and 
even works on Sunday in the busy season. This is 
enough to break down the strongest man. The young 
wife of the farmer is out at sunrise, and by the time her 
day's work is done it is ten o'clock at night. No 
woman can continue to do this with impunity. She 



174 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

invariably breaks down, and becomes miserable for life. 
There is a constant strain, no let oflf. Wreck and ruin 
are the result. 

Bat What they CanH Sell. — Besides, farmers 
and other workers do not feed well enough. They have 
plenty to eat, but they stint themselves constantly. 
They raise poultry, but they sell it. They have plenty 
or milk, but it brings two cents a quart. They sell it, 
and do not allow themselves nor their children a mouth- 
ful. They live on salty bacon, rancid butter and 
innutritions diet. They do not allow themselves any 
good fruit as long as there is a market for it. They 
stint themselves in their abundance, and, while they do 
so, they imperil their health and that of their children. 

Good beefsteak, fresh eggs, good bread, plenty of 
rich milk, not the skimmed article, which even contains 
no nourishment for hogs, healthy fruit, an occasional 
chicken dinner, eight hours sound sleep, not over 
twelve hours work a day, an occasional holiday, an en- 
tire Sunday's rest, a few weeks oflf in the woods, or to 
some cheap summer resort, the best room in the house 
for the parents to sleep in, instead of reserving it for 
strangers, to be occupied once or twice a year, a little 
fun and pleasure at home, an ice cream party occasion- 
ally, to which the neighbors are invited ; these are as 
necessary for the farmer as for the king, the merchant, 
the preacher, the banker, and they can be enjoyed by 
him just as well. It is cheaper for him to have them 
than to pay doctor bills, and eke out a miserable exist- 
ence through life's later years. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 1 75 

How Health is Ruined. — A young man comes to 
town from the farm, or a young lady, too, for that mat- 
ter, with high health, high hopes, and a high ambition, 
backed by a good family, a good education and good 
moral principles. Within six months health is often 
broken down, and how? They are employed in a 
damp basement, in a counting room, keeping books, 
writing letters, etc. , or, they stand behind a counter, in 
an insufficiently lighted, illy ventilated room, from 
seven in the morning to nine in the evening. The few 
moments given to ' ' swallowing ' ' dinner and supper 
are entirely insufficient for masticating the food, and 
the mind is all the time jaded, with the thought that 
they must hurry back, at the earliest possible moment. 
When they return, the coat, sack and hat are thrown 
off and chilling takes place. Sometimes for hours, also, 
when engaged in store, the urgent calls of nature are 
deferred, a dull headache is the immediate, while pain 
and suffering may be the remote and life-long result. 

Another illustration. The farmer, or the farmer's 
wife, very frequently have a number of ailments, suf- 
fering from colds, rheumatic pains, pains in the stom- 
ach, aches and pains from top to toe. The appetite is 
good, only there is a weakness, work goes hard, all 
they can do is to grunt and eat. Eat sodden bread, 
greasy cakes, pie, preserves, doughnuts, eat at regular 
meals, and between times. Is it a wonder that such 
people are complaining ? They live and act as if they 
had no brains. They can not fail to ruin their health. 



176 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

What is the next resort? Medicines are taken to 
stimulate, but the stimulus is only that of the lash ap- 
plied to the back of an exhausted donkey. It either 
kills, or induces an unnatural eflfort, which can only be 
exerted temporarily. But, *4t seemed to do good for 
awhile. " So it did, yet the reaction is alwa3^s equal, 
not only to the action, but leaves the already over-tired, 
broken-down body, a little feebler, more exhausted, at 
every such unnatural effort, and expenditure of vital 
forces. Ere long the entire breakdown will come, the 
ruin to body, soul and estate. 

What is the remedy ? Nothing short of an entire 
change of the practices of life, both in work, diet and 
recreation, a building up of the system from below. 
An entire physical conversion is the only salvation. 

Popular Errors Concerning Health. — It was 
formerly said that it is injurious to health to eat at 
night, especially before retiring, that a person should 
retire on an empty stomach. Good scientists and phy- 
sicians now say that a person should never go to bed 
with an empty stomach, that doing so is an injury to 
the digestive organs, subjecting them to an unnatural 
strain. 

Professor George H. Rohe, of the College of Phy- 
sicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, in a recent lecture on 
**Some Popular Errors Concerning Health and its 
Preservation,'* quoted the saying : '^One man's meat is 
another's poison," and showed that, while idiosyncrasies 
with regard to certain articles of food or medicines do 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. \11 

exist, they are far less frequent than is generally 
believed. Articles of food which ordinarily disagree 
may be better borne if differently cooked. A more 
serious error is that one should rise from the table hun- 
gry. The sensation of hunger is a cry of the tissues 
for food, and should always be appeased. Much of the 
ill-health of brain workers is due to a lack of sufficient 
food. It is impossible to lay down hard rules as to the 
quantity of food one should eat, but the remarks of the 
old country doctor who had lived in good health, doing 
hard work until four-score and ten, might be taken as 
examples : ''I have always :aten when I wanted to eat, 
as much as I wanted, and the best food I could get." 

Health in Youth. — Late hours, irregular habits, 
and want of attention to diet, are common errors with 
most young men, and they gradually, but at first imper- 
ceptibly, undermine the health and lay the foundation 
for various forms of disease in after life. It is very dif- 
ficult to make young persons comprehend this. They 
frequently sit up as late as twelve, one or two o'clock, 
without experiencing any ill eflfects ; they go without a 
meal to-day, and to-morrow eat to repletion, with only 
temporary inconvenience ; one night they will sleep 
three or four hours, and the next nine or ten ; or one 
night, 'in their eagerness to get away into some agree- 
able company, they will take no food at all, and the 
next, perhaps, will eat a hearty supper, and go to bed 
upon it. Indeed, nearly all the shattered constitutions 
with which too many are cursed, are a result of a disre- 
gard of the plainest precepts of health in early life. 



178 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

Better than to Pay the Doctor^ it is to take care 
of health. Better to eat healthful food, to pay the 
miller and the butcher, than the doctor, though the 
doctor may not say so. 



Liver Complaints. 

Heat and Fatty Diet.— Summer is always fa- 
vorable to the production of liver complaints, especi- 
ally if too much fatty diet is consumed and exercise 
is not proportionate. The bile is composed mainly 
of those waste portions of the human machine, which, 
having subserved their purpose, are no longer needed, 
but require to be removed from the body; and in the 
wonderful wisdom and economy of the the great 
Architect of our frame, and of all worlds, the very 
passing out of this waste, is made to answer a pur- 
pose fundamentally essential to all human health; for, 
after having eaten a meal, the bile is conveyed into 
the intestinal canal, drop by drop, causing an action 
which results in the regular daily motion of the 
bowels, without which there can never be good health 
for forty-eight hours at a time; hence * 'constipation'* 
shows that the liver is not working healthfully, and 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 179 

remedies are required whicli "act upon the liver.'* 
There are two safe unmedicinal modes of acting on 
the liver, of starting the machinery of life, when it 
tends to stand still; go to bed, wrap up " warm, 
make hot applications to the feet, drink warm teas 
abundantly, so as to cause profuse perspiration for 
two or three hours. A better plan is, go to work in 
the open air and keep at it, to the extent of exci- 
ting a gentle perspiration, until tired or very hungry, 
for whatever starts perspiration on the skin, starts 
the wheel of the liver to working, and the person 
gets well apace. 







180 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 



Kidney Troubles. 

This Deceptive Disease on the Increase. 

Every one who has been at all observant must know 
that kidney troubles have increased very much, 
within the past quarter of a century. Many of our 
best men in the different professions and particularly 
business men, have died in recent years of Bright' s 
disease. The disease is very deceptive, and its vic- 
tims are frequently carried off quite suddenly. Phy- 
sicians tell us of cases where persons suspected no 
danger, felt comfortably well, and yet, it was found 
on examination that they could live but a few months. 
We have ourselves known instances where in less 
than a week the fell destroyer did his work, though 
disease had not been know^n to have invaded the 
system. Not long ago we attended the funeral of a 
young lady of less than twenty years, who felt strong 
enough to go to church on Sunday, and yet by 
Tuesday night she was a corpse. She had, it is true, 
experienced some lassitude and had an inordinate 
thirst, yet nothing was thought of this till she took 
her bed, fell into a delirium and, in two short 
days, had passed from the stage of life. 

Over Mental Work. — Derangement of the kid- 
neys is a common result of mental overwork. When 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 181 

they fail to carry off the waste matter of the system 
uric acid, that deadly poison, accumulates, and sneaks 
through all the blood channels. The whole system 
becomes a kind of cess-pool and every function is 
impaired. Unless help is found, the ' 'general break- 
ing up" soon follows. 

The reason why so many professional men, par- 
ticularly those of sedentary habits die of kidney disease, 
is mental strain, and the want of bodily exercise. 
They sit in their offices with their minds bent on 
business, often worried, swallow their meals hurriedly, 
eat bread finely bolted, often having alum mixed 
with it; instead of walking home, or when they attend 
to errands, they take the street cars, or have their own 
carriages at hand to carry them to and fro, never 
walking a step if they can avoid it, even passing to 
and from the second and higher stories of buildings 
on elevators, instead of walking up and down the stairs. 
These are some of the reasons why those engaged 
in business, professional men, and persons of leisure are 
so much more subject to kidney ailments than those " 
engaged in active out-door pursuits. 




182 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 



Lack of Exercise. 

Both beast and bird, in a state of nature, are exempt 
from disease except in rare cases. It is because the 
unappeasable instinct of searching for their necessary 
food impels them to ceaseless activities. Children, when 
left to themselves, eat a great deal and have excellent 
health, because they will be doing something all the 
time, until they become so tired that they fall asleep, 
and as soon as they wake they begin to run about again ; 
thus their whole existence is spent in alternate eating 
and sleeping and exercise that is interesting and pleas- 
urable. The health of childhood would be enjoyed by 
those of mature years if, like children, they would eat 
only when they are hungry, stop when they have done, 
take rest in sleep as soon as they are tired, and when not 
eating or resting would spend the time diligently in such 
muscular activities as would be interesting, agreeable, 
and profitable. Exercise without mental elasticity, 
without an enlivenment of the feeliugs and of the mind, 
is of comparatively little value. 

Exercise is health-producing, because it worKS off 
and out of the system its waste dead and effete matters ; 
these are all converted into liquid form, called by some 
' * humors, ' ' which have exit from the body through the 
* Spores" of the skin in the shape of perspiration. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

• 
Exercise improves the health, because every step a 

man takes tends to impart motion to the bowels. A 

proper amount of exercise keeps them acting once in 

every twenty-four hours. 

Exercise is healthful, because the more we exer- 
cise the faster we breathe. If we breathe faster we take 
that much more air into the lungs ; but it is the air 
we breathe which purifies the blood, and the more 
air we take in, the more perfectly is that process per- 
formed. 

Observe the Requests of Nature. — No teacher 
should ever refuse a child permission to go out when 
asked, if he knows the request is an honost one. Even 
when he doubts the necessity of the case, he should let 
the child have the benefit of the doubt. Permanent 
injury to the organs of the child, resulting in the ruin of 
his health for life, may be the result, if nature's calls- 
are postponed or disregarded. Nature is a faithful 
monitor, even as much so as conscience. But, just as 
conscience is weakened every time its warnings are 
neglected, and it thus becomes so enfeebled that at 
last its faithful warning voice is silenced ; so the 
organs of the body lose the power to discharge their 
duties, whenever their requests are denied, and the 
result is pain, disease and suffering, often making life 
a burden. The large number of kidney diseases, now 
so common, originate from disobeying the requests of 
nature. 



184 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Light. 

Necessary for I/ife. — To the extent that a living 
being is deprived of sunlight, to that extent it will be 
deprived of life and the power requisite for develop- 
ment, and the organization rendered susceptible to the 
causes of disease and death. Men and animals will 
develop to a certain extent, and may retain an imperfect 
organization, for a time in the dark, owing to their 
living on food, which has been already organized in the 
vegetable and animal kingdoms ; but what little life 
they have is mostly derived from other organizations. 
They are not in direct communication with the great 
fountain of life. Tlie sun's rays, requisite in organiz- 
ing substantial structures are wanting ; the bones and 
the muscles remain soft and delicate ; the. blood is 
watery and thin, and the red globules are few ; the skin 
is pale and lifeless, the brain is imperfectly developed, 
and there is either sluggishness or great irritability of 
the nerves, and peevishness of dis^DOsition. The Esqui- 
maux, who live far to the north, and have but little 
sunlight, are torpid in mind and body. The fashionable 
lady, who has descended from cultivated and healthy 
ancestors, but shuts herself up in dark parlors, by the 
aid of blinds and curtains, and goes veiled, when she 
ventures into the sun, is nervous, peevish and discon- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 185 

tented. She, to gratify her vanity and ignorance of the 
laws of health, is depriving herself of a large share of 
that life which is her due, and which the sunlight alone 
can give her, and she is suffering the consequences. 

Sunlight Better than Medicine. — Such are the 
combined influences of the three principles of light, 
that sunlight becomes one of the most powerful agents 
known in nature, for the restoration of the sick to 
health. Dr. Dio lycwis, who is considered good author- 
ity, said once in our hearing, that in many cases of 
rheumatism, consumption and other chronic diseases, 
he simply recommends the patient to expose himself 
daily for several hours to the sunlight. He went so far 
as to add, that he had recommended persons to strip 
themselves and to lie down in a room where the rays of 
the sun might have free access to all parts of the body, 
and to turn around, from side to side, until every part 
of the body had been exposed to the sun. The remedy 
has a magical effect. It is worth more, in many 
instances, than any other medicine that can be adminis- 
tered. 

If sunlight then has this influence, as a curative 
agent of disease, must it not also be doubly effectual in 
health? Most delicate and mysterious is the relation 
w^hich our bodies sustain to sunlight. How our feel- 
ings, and even our appearance changes with every 
change of the sky ! When the sun shines, the blood 
flows freely, and the spirit light and buoyant. When 
gloom overspreads the heavens, dullness and sober 



186 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

thoughts possess the mind. The energy is greater, the 
body is actually stronger, in the bright light of day, 
while the health is manifestly promoted, digestion has- 
tened, and the color made to play on the cheek, when 
the rays of sunshine are allowed to sport freely among 
us. There is something in darkness soothing, depress- 
ive, quieting ; while light, on the contrary, excites and 
arouses. It is common to see this socially illustrated — 
a company assembled in an apartment dimly lighted 
will be dull,' somnolent and stupid ; but let the room be 
brightly illuminated and the spirits rise, thought is 
enlivened, and conversation proceeds with increased 
animation. 

I/Ct There be I/ight. — Sunshine is an essential 
element of human life, health and happiness. Shall 
we do without it ? Shall we close our parlors, that no 
ray of cheerful sunlight shall get in from January to 
December? Shall we keep our sleeping apartments 
darkened, during the day time, so that the damp vapors 
of night cannot be evaporated? Shall we try to hide 
ourselves from the sun's rays, so that our delicate, beau- 
tiful, sallow and sickly countenances remain white and 
ghostly, as though we came out of the sepulchre? 
When we walk out, shall we ward ofif every ray of a 
benignant Creator's smiling, cheerful sunlight, hy hold- 
ing a parasol or umbrella above our heads ? Shall our 
tiny fingers be gloved up for fear that they might be 
tinged with those beautiful colors with which the 
Almighty adorns his kingdom of nature ? Some per- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 187 

sons love the domain of the sickly, the ghastly, the pale 
realms of shade and of death, but we confess to have an 
instinctive love of life, and cannot make up our mind 
to walk about as one coming just freshly from the 
grave, bound hand and foot, and our grave-clothes on. 
We believe that if the good I^ord had intended us to 
live in the dark. He never would have said: *' Let there 
be light." He would not have created sunshine, if he 
had intended us to grovel in darkness, or else would 
put a blind, a shutter, or a curtain before the sun in the 
heavens. 

What shall we say to that parent who says : *%ook 
at my little child, see how beautiful, how clear, how 
almost transparent the complexion is ? " Alas ! how 
sad. Do you expect to raise that child, and that he will 
be a stay to you in your declining years? It is impos- 
sible for you to succeed. With his impoverished blood 
and irritable brain and nervous system, he is illy pre- 
pared to resist the cause of the diseases of childhood. 
You have every reason to fear that sooner or later one 
of the eruptive fevers, bowel complaints, or inflamma- 
tory affections, to which children are liable, will stretch 
him upon his suffering and dying bed, and that you 
will follow his lifeless remains to a premature grave. 
Should he be so fortunate as to survive the dangers of 
childhood,- he can become but a miserable effigy of a 
man, and a lifetime of wretchedness and suffering is 
before him. If you would save your child from all this, 
there is but one course for you to pursue. You must 



188 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

care less for carpets, and his complexion and delicacy, 
than you do for his health and life, and manifest 
your love for him by turning him out of doors into 
the sunshine, and by never, when the sun is shining, 
allowing him to stay in a room where the air is not con- 
stantly purified and made alive by the solar rays. 

Teacher, a word to you. Do you teach in a dark, 
dingy school-room ? As you value your life and health 
and that of your pupils, have something done to your 
school-room. Tear down every blind ; have every win- 
dow opened, and invite God's own free sunlight to 
come in. 






COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 189 



How to Avoid Malarial Fevers. 

Malaria, Means Bad Air, in common English; 
Schlechte Luft, in German. It usually is generated in 
low places, along streams, especially where the beds of 
streams are exposed to the sun's rays. The cutting 
away of our forests, which formerly shaded the streams, 
and the streams becoming smaller, in consequence of 
the country being denuded of wood, is the fruitful 
cause of much of the malarial, intermittent fever, or 
ague, with which we are now afflicted. Places which 
formerly were exempt from the disease are now vis- 
ited by it. It seems to become epidemic from year to 
year. It is a terrible disease. It completely uses up a 
fellow. Takes all the snap out of him. Unfits him 
for everything and predisposes him to all kinds of dis- 
eases, particularly typhoid fever. On the 9th inst 
we buried a young girl, but twenty one years old, who, 
though strong and robust, capable of resisting disease, 
as far as it lies in human power to do so, in three 
short weeks, passed from health to malarial fever, 
typhoid fever and the grave, and that at Doylestown, 
Pa., a place claiming to be among the healthiest on 
the globe. 

To i^scape It. — Now it pays to know how to 
escape from the- clutches of this destroying angel, and 



190 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

if you will follow the advice wliicli we shall here give 
you, you can feel comparatively safe from its ravages, 
and, at least have done your duty. 

Malaria prevails only where there is heat and 
moisture. 

There are three agencies which always will per- 
fectly and safely antagonize all the ill effects of Miasm, 
to wit: ist. A good warm meal; 2d. Heat: 3d. Cold. 
It is curious to note how each of these acts differently. 
Cold only paralyzes miasm, for, like the frozen adder, 
it comes to life to destroy as soon as it is warmed. 
Heat, continuously applied, sends the miasm to the 
clouds; hence its inocuousness in the heat of the day 
everywhere: while a hearty, warm breakfast or supper 
makes the system impervious to its effects, makes it 
invulnerable, repels its deadly onslaught. A pint of 
hot coffee, tea, milk, or hot water, with a thimbleful 
of cayenne pepper in it, will also, but a regular 
meal is better. Kindling a brisk fire in the sitting- 
room, to burn for the hour, including sunrise and 
sunset, will protect any family from malaria. These 
simple remedies cost nothing, require no doctor, 
no medicine, no constitution-destroying quinine, and 
will never fail as a preventive. The doctors may tell 
you that this is a humbug. Do not believe them, 
take the preventive rather than the cure. 

Biliousness, the Precursor of Malaria, is indi- 
cated by a bad taste in the mouth in the morning, a 
poor appetite, and a feeling of general discomfort, often 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 191 

accompanied by headache and cold feet. The best cure 
is to work moderately, take but two meals a day, and 
these of the simplest kind of food, and always a cup of 
strong coffee and some hot food, before leaving the 
house in the morning. Eat plentifully of raw tomatoes. 



The Nose. 

The Nose is for Breathing. — Man has lived 6000 
years on this globe, and isjust beginning to learn how to 
breathe, or the fact that the nose is for breathing. Children 
should be taught this and should have breathing exerci- 
ses at school. We were asked by a teacher at Butler, how 
to cure a boy fourteen years old of ' 'speaking through 
the nose' ' , or rather speaking with the nostrils contract- 
ed or closed, and thus uttering unpleasant nasal sounds. 
We advised the teacher to have breathing exercises, 
and thus to teach this pupil, and all others, to breathe 
through the nose. To say nothing of the advantage of 
the pure tone, which breathing through the nose produ- 
ces, ever}^ child should be taught to shut the mouth when 
breathing, for hygienic reasons. The Indians are much 
wiser than we in this respect. They tie a band around 
the heads of children when they put them to sleep, in 
order to keep the mouth closed and to accustom them 



]92 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

to breathe through the nose. Besides, this prevents 
snoring. Persons snore only when they sleep with the 
mouth open. Athletes, professional trainers, hunters, 
mountaineers, all physically strong and perfect men, 
habitually breathe through the nostrils. One may 
breathe mephitic gases, or the smoke of a burning 
building, for a short time through the nose, if the lips 
be kept tightly closed, when he would quickly suffo- 
cate if he attempted to breathe through the open mouth. 
Sense of Smell a Secondary Use. — The function 
or sense of smell, which is commonly considered the 
chief end of a man's nose is really a very subsidiary 
part of its business. Through the nose the air is 
purified, tempered, and moistened, before it reaches the 
sensitive larynx and lungs. Foreign and irritating par- 
ticles are arrested in their passage through the nasal 
cavities; the temperature of the air is raised to that 
of the body, while it is moistened by the secretions of 
the membrane which lines its labyrinths and the 
glands which it lodges. 

The dust which loads the city's atmosphere — filth is 
an impalpable powder — finds ready access to the upper 
portion of the air-tubes and gullet through the mouth, 
but is almost entirely deposited on the moist mucous 
surfaces of the winding, shell-like nasal passages in 
proper breathing. 

Nose Breathing Necessary to Health. — The 
usual effect of the first mouthful of cold air in a sharp 
winter atmosphere is to provoke a cough, and a prompt 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 193 

closure of the lips to guard the sensitive structures of 
the lar}'nx and vicinity, and there are few that have not 
awakened in the morning with a dry, harsh tongue, 
throat and palate, when from any cause, nasal respiration 
has been impeded during sleep, the secretion of the 
mouth being neither suitable nor sufficient to keep 
the surfaces moist under such circumstances. Catarrh 
and throat affections are much less common among those 
who keep the mouth shut and habitually breathe 
through the nostrils. This of itself, where the diseases 
are so prevalent, as a result of our climatic conditions, 
should lead to the general adoption of a practice which 
has many other and obvious advantages. We had the 
pleasure of listening to a very interesting lecture by 
Dr. C. Seller, of the University of Pennsylvania, on 
nasal catarrh. Among other important things which 
we learned, was the necessity of cleaning the nose every 
morning. The doctor argued, that, during the day and 
night, dust and dirt settles in the nose, and that it is 
just as necessary to clean the nose in the morning, as the 
teeth. He recommended that a teaspoonful of salt be 
dissolved in a tumbler full of water, and this thrown 
up into the nose and again expelled. Water without 
the salt will be apt to injure the mucous membrane. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Home Medicines. 

Don't Meddle with Medicines. — It is safe to 
say, that those people who oftenest prescribe medicines 
for themselves really know the least about them. It is 
he who is ignorant — generally so in all matters — who 
is constantly deluging himself with drugs. Generally 
the injury done does not follow immediately so that it 
may be traced directly from cause to effect ; but some- 
times it does, as in the following instance : In one of 
the poorer localities here a woman had the toothache, 
and a druggist told her to put into the cavity a piece of 
cotton wet with creosote, of which he gave her a small 
bottle. The effect v/as excellent, and the pain soon sub- 
sided. One of the woman's daughters shortly after that 
had the earache. Reasoning that if creosote was good 
for toothache, it surely ought to be good for earache, she 
dropped a little in the painful ear, and the victim barely 
escaped with her life, while, of course, on the affected 
side she was "stone deaf " ever afterward. Just -such 
stupidity as that is constantly being exhibited by some 
one, and it is not by anv means confined to the humblest 
classes. 

About Bitters. — There is another curious condi- 
tion of things. Very many drugs are dispensed in the 
form of tinctures, which are made from alcohol ; that is 



COMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 195 

the base of almost all "bitters" and "tonics." There 
are very many people so rigid in their views they deem 
it a sin to drink even a glass of lager beer, and yet 
no small number of these same people always keep 
their favorite "bitters" in the house, which they take 
regularly, as they reason, to keep themselves well. 
Such people are steady tipplers, and if they made it a 
rule to drink whiskey or brandy as often as they take 
their "medicine" they would be exactly as temperate. 
Tinctures are Dang-erous. — There suggests itself 
another point of v/hich non-professionals are almost 
always ignorant. Drugs are made not only into tinct- 
ures but also into what are known as fluid extracts. 
Now a dose of the former may be six or eight drops, 
while the latter made of the same drug, is only one 
drop. There is certainly a chance to make a grave mis- 
take. Then, too, all medicines made with alcohol, as 
tinctures and fluid extracts, unless they are very carefully 
kept, become stronger on account of evaporation. A 
dose of laudanum today just obtained from the druggist, 
may be twenty drops for an adult, and yet a few months 
from nov/, if as many drops were taken poisoning would 
result. Doubtless thousands of children are every year 
sent out of the world by medicines, the same being given 
in overdoses. A mother has a cough, aud obtains a 
mixture of some friendly druggist, who directs that she 
take it in teaspoonful doses. She is soon well, and con- 
siders that the medicine "did the work." A little of it 
is left on hand, and v/hen her baby is taken sick with a 



196 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

cold, she, assuming that what was good for her must 
certainly benefit her child, calls the "cough drops'* again 
into service. She is just as likely to give from one-third 
to one-half a teaspoonful as she is to give the correct 
dose, which may be, under no condition, more than two 
or three drops. The overdose kills it: but the chances 
are she does not recognize that fact, and is ready to do 
the same thing over again with her next baby. 

Do not Trifle with the I/ife of the Child.— 
In the poorer neighborhoods are to be found any number 
of old women who "know more about doctoring than 
any doctor does. " They base their pretentions on the 
fact of having had large families. Question one of them 
and it will very generally be found that they have lost 
their credentials ; in other words most of their children 
have died. A physician before a sick child is often a 
good deal like a man on the sidewalk, before a house 
tr>dng to tell,. from the appearance of the outside, who 
is on the inside. He watches this door and that door, 
this window and that window, and listens to every 
sound. Every faculty has been sharpened by his train- 
ing, his work is "second nature," and nothing escapes 
him. On the alert, he studies the patient, noting this 
and that symptom as it appears, and finally a complete 
picture of the disease is before him. But even then he 
is not ready to institute treatment: there is yet much tq 
be considered ere he can do that. Often the peculiarities 
of the parents will influence him ; he must know all 
about the food and its effects, bring out the error in the 



COBIMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 197 

mother's management, etc. In the treatment, as a 
rule, nursing will have the first place, and the giving of 
medicine will be of the least importance. Taking in 
every detail, not one of which can be neglected without 
endangering the child's life can any person with a 
grain of sense believe that the work of the physician 
can be safely assumed by one who has not had his 
training? Certainly no conscientious person, who holds 
life at the least value, will ever undertake it in any case. 

To know what is the matter, what is needed, and 
what will answer the purpose are the important requi- 
sites, where there is sickness or ailment. Good common 
sense, careful observation and sound judgment are nec- 
essary. Persons who are not physicians, and yet possess 
these, are often more useful than physicians who are 
lacking in them. 

Specifics. — A few agents have been employed from 
time immemorial, such as sulphur, in case of itch, and 
cutaneous disease. 

Spirits ' ' act on ' ' the brain ; fumes on the lungs ; 
ipecac, on the stomach ; rhubarb on the upper bowels ; 
aloes on the lower ; mercury on the liver ; watermelons 
on the kidneys ; strychnine on nerves ; ergot on the 
womb. 

Brandy makes a man as funny as a fool. Opium 
makes him as stupid as an ass. A hop infusion will put 
him to sleep. Tea keeps him wide awake. It is on 
these facts and principles that the whole science of med- 
icine is founded. 



198 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

Anodynes cause sleep, as opium, hops. 

Astringents bind, close up, contract, as vinegar and 
persimmons. 

Cathartics empty the bowels by purging, as salts 
and castor oil. 

Diaphoretics cause perspiration, as hot herb tea. 

Emetics empty the stomach, as tartar, ipecac, to- 
bacco, etc. 

Expectorants loosen the phlegm in the lungs. 

Irrita7its draw the blood to the part away from the 
painful spot, and thus relieve, as a mustard plaster ; 
thus giving thef ailing part time to heal. 

Liniments are irritants in a liquid form. 

Lotions are washes to cleanse or soothe. 

Refrigerants are to cool in fevers, as acids, lemon- 
ades, etc. 

Tonics are intended to give strength, as bitters, 
made of vegetable remedies. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 19D 



Poison Medicines. 

Most Medicines are Poisons, and should there- 
fore, if given, be administered by the most skilful phy- 
sicians. Patent medicines all contain poison and 
should, therefore never be taken by any one unless he 
has a special knowledge of the human body, and the 
effects which poisons may have on it. Tvlany people try 
medicines, and if one does not produce the desired 
effect, they take another and another. They give them 
to children to make them sleep, to stop their crying, to 
ease their pains, to cure them when they complain, to 
* 'sharpen" their appetites, to cure their colds. All 
this is done by thousands of ignorant parents ; ignorant 
of the laws of health, and of the cause of disease. While 
they are doing this they are pouring poison down 
the throats of innocent little ones, and often hastening 
their death. 

Be Careful of **Drops/^ — A young mother re- 
marked to us recently that her babe had been quite 
restless at first, but now she ahvays gave it "drops" and 
this made it rest. This mother, with thousands of 
others, is making the sad mistake of putting her child 
to rest by drugging ic. The ''drops" of which she 
speaks, contain opium, in one or the other oi its various 
shapes, and thus a stupor is induced in the child, which 



200 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

may dull its natural brightness for life, possibly mak- 
ing it a half idiot. I^ittle children seldom cry unless 
they have pain. They get pain by being fed to excess. 
The normal, common sense method of relieving the 
pain, and stopping the crying, is not by drugging the 
child, and dulling or destroying its sensibility, but by 
feeding it less at a time and more frequently. 

Most patent medicines are composed largely of 
poor alcohol, and yet temperance people often use these 
poisons in large quantities. 

Physicians use but little medicine in their families, 
because they know that they are poisons. They use 
no patent medicines, because they are the worst poi- 
sons. The best physicians use but little medicine. The 
better the physician, the less medicine he uses, the 
more instruction he gives relative to the nature of 
the disease, and about foods, drinks, temperature, heat, 
cold, air, water, rest, sleep, posture and exercise. 

We say to everybody, the less poison, the more 
good air, good food and good exercise, the better. 
Avoid medicine poisons. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 201 



Patent fledicines. 

The quantity of patent medicines swallowed by the 
Americans is enormous. What a change since the days 
of our fathers. Then they had peppermint, golden- 
tincture, Bateman's drops, tincture of life, and the vari- 
ous herb teas. Now the names of the nostrums and 
cure-alls offered to the public are legion. Open the 
newspaper or even the religious paper and your eye 
is greeted with the advertisements of patent medicines. 

Patent Medicines Not a Necessity. — Both art 
and nature are impressed into the service of advertising 
patent medicines. Scarcely a barn, stable, shed, bridge, 
rock, tree, telegraph post, or other object in the air, 
earth, or under the earth, that is not decorated (?) with 
inscriptions. Men, women and children are thus 
forced into the belief that those medicines are necessar}'- 
for regaining and retaining health. The vender calls 
on them and, by his persuasive eloquence, gets them 
to buy and try. The street corner and the public 
square re-echoes with the yell of the agent, and he 
never fails to command an audience of willing, unso- 
phisticated dupes. There is no town exempt therefrom. 
The very rocks by the road side are besmeared with 
these vile advertisements of these body-and-soul-destroy- 
ing nostrums. It is a fearful delusion of the devil 



202 COMBION SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

that health can be bought. Preserve it while you 
have it, and, if lost or impaired, do not attempt to 
restore it with the medicine bottle. Nature's own recu- 
perative and restoring powers must do it, if it is ever 
done. Let this solemn, eternal truth be impressed in 
every school room and family in the land. 

Human Nature is Weak. — It is deemed so much 
easier to cure an ill than to avoid it. ''To take some- 
thing" is so common and so easy, particularly if it comes 
in sugar-coated pills, soothing sirups, perfumed pastilles 
and sweetened lozenges, that the millions vastly prefer 
it to exercising a little precaution or taking the 
ounce of prevention. That this is the case is proved 
by the fact that these medicines are sold in sufficient 
quantities, a thousand different kinds, to pay for all the 
advertising and enrich the manufacturer. Some of them 
have become millionaires, and who has paid for their 
humbugs? Poor, suffering, sick, drugged, dying 
humanity. What is the fact that should be impressed 
on the minds of the young especially, both 'in family 
and in school, and, for that matter, on the old, too ? 

That remedies are not capable of imparting vital 
power or activity. This is one of the first and all-im- 
portant lessons in physiology. 

That medicines are not food. That they contain 
none of the essential engredients of food. That they do 
not furnish food, nor a substitute for it. 

That what makes a person /^^/ better is no evidence 
of benefit to him. The judgment based on the report 
of the nerves of sensation is a product of delusion. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 203 

That a remedy develops the energies of the vital 
system. Exercise does this, healthful food, ditto, rest 
may do it, medicine, alcohol and stimulants never. 

Every neighborhood has examples of medicine- 
wrecks. These are the dyspeptics, the hypochondriacs, 
the miserables, the physically incapable of both sexes, 
who are ever taking medicine. These are your 
OBJECT LESSONS. Hold them up to the young, as 
crows and hawks and birds of prey in general, are 
nailed against trees when shot, as warnings to others. 
Flee for your lives. Patent medicines kill body, mind 
and soul. 

Good Rules. — Work is good medicine. 

Society says one thing, nature another; follow 
nature. 

Sleep eight hours out of the twenty four, eat 
three meals a day, and walk on the sunny side of the 
way. 

If a healthy baby is properly taken care of it 
ought in its early months of life to pass fully eighteen 
hours in sleep. 

The most violent poisons are vegetable, and yet 
many people will fool with vegetable substances as if 
they were harmless. Beware of medicines marked 
''purely vegetable." 

The physician of the future will be employed to 
prevent, more than to cure disease. He will call once 
a week and give the family advice hov/ to preserve 
health. 



204 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

These are all-important health lessons, which should 
be constantly impressed on the young. Activity and 
work are the only proper medicines. 



Posture. 

Erect Position Necessary to Health. — Many of 

the young ladies and gentlemen of the present day are 
round-shouldered, and consequently predisposed to con- 
sumption. It is impossible for a stooped person to enjoy 
good health. His breathing is imperfect, the lungs are 
not inflated, the organs can not perform their functions, 
and disease, suffering and premature decay and death 
are the result. 

Parents, teachers, and those who have the supervi- 
sion of the young can not be too careful to see thereto 
the children maintain an erect posture at all times, and 
if they have fallen into the pernicious habit of stooping, 
to take the most active measures to correct it. 

The back bone, spinal column, is composed of 
twenty-four alternate layers is a soft gristle, resembling 
rubber. The weight of the body rests on these elastic 
cushions, when we walk, work or stand. The conse- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 205 

quence is that a person is fully half an inch shorter in 
stature in the evening, than he was in the morning. 

Spinal Disease.— If persons fall into the habit of 
leaning to one side, sitting bowed forward, as children 
frequently do in school, the pressure on the elastic cush- 
ions will tend to make these cushions thinner, on the 
side towards which there is a leaning. The pressure and 
absorption will also become less on that side, and the 
cushion will become wedge-shaped. Sometimes the 
whole cushion will be absorbed. This is spinal disease. 

The cure must be commenced before the bones meet, 
or the case is hopeless. To effect this there must be a 
straightening up, bending the other way. To make this 
effective a person must take plentiful out-door exercise, 
and while sitting or standing constantly straighten up. 
While sitting, reading, writing and sewing, it is almost 
impossible to attain the erect position, though teachers, pa- 
rents and employers should constantly urge on the young 
to sit as erect as possible. But the out-door exercise, with 
erect posture is the best panacea. Walking with the head 
downward, or sitting thus also affect the health, by com- 
pressing the lungs. It diminishes the capacity of receiv- 
ing an adequate quantity of pure air, the blood becomes 
more impure, until the entire mass beconies diseased. 

The pernicious habit of sleeping with the head rest- 
ing on high pillows should be discarded. The head should 
be almost on a level with the body, or only slightly rais- 
ed. Sitting half upright in bed is very inj urious to health. 
Give frequent exercises in breathing. The members of 



£3G COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

the class should be required to stand firmly on the floor, 
throw the head and shoulders back and inhale till one 
hundred is counted, than exhale in the same way. 

Sensible Rules. — The following rules should be 
observed by every one, and parents and teachers should 
imj)ress them constantly on the young: 

Walk with the chest thrown outv/ard. 

Walk with the chin raised above a horizontal line, 
as if looking at the top of a carriage. 

Walk frequently with the hands on the back. 

If an effort of the mind is made to throw the should- 
ers back, a feeling of tiredness and awkv/ardness is soon 
experienced, or it is forgotten. The use of braces to hold 
up the body is necessarily pernicious; for there can be no 
brace which does not press upon some part of the person 
more than is natural, hence cannot fail to impede injur- 
iously the circulation of that part. But were there none 
of these objections, the brace would soon adapt itself to 
the bodily position, like a hat or shoe or new garment, 
and would cease to be a brace. 

To Cure Stoop Shoulder. — There is one good v/ay 
to cure it. Shoulder braces will not help. One needs 
not an artificial substitute, but some means to develop 
the muscles whose duty it is to hold the head and should- 
ers erect. I know of but one bull's-eye shot. It is to 
carry a weight on the head. A sheep-skin or other strong 
bag filled with twenty or thirty pounds of sand is a good 
weight. When engaged in your morning studies, either 
before or after breakfast, put the bag of sand on your 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 207 

head, hold your head erect, draw your chin close to your 
neck, and walk slowly about the room, coming back, if 
you please, every minute or two to your book, or carry- 
ing the book as you walk. The muscles whose duty it 
is to hold the head and shoulders erect are hit, not with 
scattering shot, out with a rifle ball. The bones of the 
spine and the intervertebral substance will soon accom- 
modate themselves to the new attitude. One year of daily 
practice with the bag, half an hour morning and evening, 
will give you a noble carriage, without interfering a 
moment with your studies. 

It is a sad thing to see, as one passes along the 
street, so many young ladies walk stoop-shouldered, with 
crooked spines, thus digging for themselves prem^ature 
graves, all of which is easily avoidable. 

Waikingf I^rectly. — Not only adds to manliness of 
appearance, but dev^elops the chest and promotes the gen- 
eral health in a high degree, because the lungs being re- 
lieved of the pressure made by having the head down- 
ward and bending the chest in, admit the air freely and 
fully down to the very bottom of the lungs. To derive 
the highest benefit from walking, hold up the head, keep 
the mouth closed, and move briskly. 



m COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 



Pneumonia. 

A Terrible Disease. — Pneumonia is a Greek word 
having the same derivation as pneumatics, and means 
breath. It is an inflammation of the lungs. It is a dis- 
ease to which the feeble and strong are alike subject. It 
very frequently carries off the most rugged in four or 
five days. 

Pneumonia is a terrible disease. It strikes young 
and old, the weekly and the robust alike, and is com- 
mon to all seasons of the year and to all sections of the 
country. Its ravages are felt from Canada to the Gulf. 
Great and sudden changes of temperature, however, 
are most favorable to it. 

Worse than Yellow Fever. — Yellow fever is a 
much dreaded disease, and yet pneumonia is more dan- 
gerous. Those who recover from yellow fever are 
stronger afterwards than they were before, while those 
who get over pneumonia are often only spared to live a 
life of suffering. Mrs. Bernd, a German lady, atVidal- 
in, Louisiana, who with her daughter entertained us, 
and made us feel at home in her house, though we 
were strangers in a strange land, told us that she 
had passed through yellow fever, and by careful 
nursing had brought her family through the scourge so 
that all were stronger after the recovery than before. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 209 

A few years later, however, her daughter, who was 
the picture of health, were carried off to the grave, 
after a few days suffering from pneumonia. Similar 
experiences have been made by thousands. Pneumonia 
is a most dangerous and treacherous disease, and yet it 
is avoidable. 

School children, in the fall and spring seasons, are 
specially subject to this disease. They may contract it 
by becoming over-heated on the play-ground, and sud- 
denly cooling off, by sitting down on the damp ground, 
by divesting themselves of extra clothing when warm, 
by sitting in a draught, and in a hundred different ways. 

Parents and teachers cannot be too careful in 
watching children, yea, everybody should exercise the 
greatest care, that colds may not be contracted, for colds 
easily terminate in pneumonia, and pneumonia not 
uncommonly terminates in death, or if not fatally, it 
leaves results, such as pulmonary diseases, which remain 
incurable fqr life. 

How to tell Pneumonia. — A clear understanding 
of this disease is denied the non-professional. It is even 
impossible for him, no matter how well-informed, to de- 
termine positively, from any knowledge which he may 
possess, when a case of pneumonia is before him. 
There are, however, some symptoms which it will be 
well to describe, for when they appear in children 
they should at least excite a suspicion that pneumonia 
exists. 

The disease may begin abruptly or in a gradual 



210 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

way, preceded and associated with broncliitis. As a 
rule, pneumonia follows broncliitis in children under 
three years of age. Among the earliest signs of the 
disease is the change in the respiration. The breathing 
is hurried and labored. The air does not appear to 
enter deeply into the lungs, and, as it is expelled a 
moaning sound is emitted. This expiratory moan is 
strong, but not conclusive evidence of pneumonia, as it 
is sometimes heard in painful affections of the stomach 
and abdomen. 

Cough is also an early symptom. It is dry, hack- 
ing and painful; some have described it as a *' short, 
stuffy cough." Crying, says one writer, during an 
attack of coughing, or for a brief time afterward, and 
attended with distortion of the features, indicates 
pneumonia. 

That a child with that disease suffers from pain is 
evinced in the expression of the face, which is flushed 
and anxious. There so often appears a deep crimson 
spot on one or both cheeks of pneumonia patients, it is 
assumed by many physicians to be an important sign. 

A significant symptom of the disease in question is 
the dilation and falling of the nostrils as the little one 
breathes. 

There is a loss of appetite, thirst, and restlessness. 
If the patient is an infant, its nursing is seriously inter- 
fered with on account of the shortness of the breath, 
and although it makes repeated efforts, it is unable to 
satisfy its wants. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 211 

The blood vessels of the neck stand out promi- 
nently and throb preceptibly. In the earliest stage, 
headache is quite constant ; older children complain of 
it, while those too young to speak present exidence that 
it exists. They often lie with eyes shut, "apparently 
a half conscious state, and are fretful when spoken to or 
aroused. ' ' 

Fever is invariably present, and quite high, especi- 
ally in the first stage. The tongue is moist, and 
covered with slight coating. The bowels are almost 
always constipated. The initial symptoms already de- 
scribed are quite sufficient to occasion a mother alarm 
when they appear in her child. Her duty is then clear; 
she should send for a physician without delay. 

How Avoided. — Children and grown people 
should always take the following precautions. Teachers 
and parents should regard it their duty to impress them 
on the young : Avoid checking perspiration rapidly, or 
slowly, by remaining still until the body is chilled. 
Always have plenty of fresh cool air in your room. 
Shut your mouth when you pass from a cold to hot, or 
from a hot to a cold atmosphere. Asleep or awake, keep 
the mouth shut when breathing. Keep the tempera- 
ture of your rooms, churches, and school rooms rather 
below than above sixty-five Fahrenheit. Keep the feet 
warm and dry, — if damp change stockings at once. 
Spend a few hours in the open air. Wear thick soled 
shoes. Wear plenty of underclothing, especially 
flannels next to the skin. 



212 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

Never sleep with the head in the draft of an open 
window. Never sit in a draft. Always throw a shawl 
or an over- coat over the back when you feel cool. Never 
stand still out of doors, especially at street corners, after 
having walked even a short distance. If compelled to 
face a bitter cold wind, throw a silk handkerchief over 
the face. Never take off a single article of clothing when 
overheated by exercise. Never sit for more than five 
minutes at a time with the back towards the fire or stove. 
Never ride in a vehicle after you have become warm by 
walking. 

Avoidable Causes. — A person sits up at night, the 
fire goes down, he feels chilly, but being anxious to 
finish a letter, or some work, continues and is chilled 
through. He gets an attack of pneumonia from the ef- 
fects of which he may never recover. He dies eventual- 
ly of consumption, after protracted suffering. 

A young lady remains at a ball till two in the 
morning. She is overheated from the dance, goes out 
into the cold air, perhaps rides home, has an attack of 
pneumonia, and never experiences a day in her life any- 
more that she feels well. 

An audience is dismissed from a hot, crowded hall. 
People rush out into the cold, raw, damp air, with mouths 
wide open, and perhaps walk briskly against a cold wind. 
In less than a fortnight several of them are sick and have 
died of pneumonia. 

Some one calls at a neighbor's house, and on leav- 
ing is accompanied to the door by the kind lady of the 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 213 

house. She stands there talking, and forgets herself, till 
she feels thoroughly chilled. She goes back and dies of 
pneumonia within a week. 

Persons protect the chest by means of scarfs and 
other articles of wear, but never think of throwing a 
shawl over their shoulders, to protect the lungs, that 
most delicate organ, fastened between the shoulders near 
the back. The consequence is that they feel a chilling 
sensation in the back, the lungs unprotected become in- 
flamed, and pneumonia is the result. 

Some families are keept in doors during cold weather. 

The children are never allowed to have a breath of cold 

air blow over them. They thus become feeble, easily 

take cold, have cold all the time, and when they once 

get out, have an attack of pneumonia. On the other 

hand persons who camp out at night, even the tramps 

who build a fire and sleep around it, seldom take cold. 

Hence, be as much afraid of pneumonia, and take as 

g^eat a precaution against it as you would against yellow 

fever. 

1 



214 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 



The Pulse. 

study the Pulse.— The pulse of a healthy grown 
person beats 70 times in a minute ; there may be good 
health down to sixty ; but if the pulse always exceeds 
70, there is disease ; the machine is working too fast ; 
is wearing itself out ; there is fever or inflammation 
somewhere, and the body is feeding on itself, as in con- 
sumption, where the pulse is always quick, that is, over 
seventy, gradually increasing with decreasing chances 
of cure, until it reaches no or 120, when death comes 
before many days. When the pulse is all the time over 
70 for months, and there is even a slight cough, the 
lungs are affected. 

Every intelligent person owes it to himself to learn 
from his family physician how to ascertain the pulse in 
health ; then, by comparing it with what it is when 
ailing, he may have some idea of the urgency of his 
own case, and it will be an important guide to the 
physician. Parents ought to know the healthy pulse 
of each child ; as, now and then, a person is born with 
a peculiarly slow or fast pulse, and the very case in 
hand may be that peculiarity. An infant's pulse is 
130 ; a child's of seven years about 80 ; from 20 to 60 
years, it is 70 beats a minute, declining to sixty, at 
fourscore. 

How the Pulse Feels. — There are pulses all over 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 215 

Ihe body, but where there is only skin and bone, and at 
the temples, it is more easily felt ; the wrist is the most 
convenient point. The feebleness or strength of the 
beats is not material, being modified by the finger's 
pressure. Comparative rapidity is the great point ; near 
death it is 140 and over. A healthy pulse imparts to 
4?he finger a feeling as cf a woolen string ; in fever, it 
feels harder, like a silk thread ; if there is inflammation 
which is always dangerous, it beats fast, spiteful and 
hard, as if a fine wire was throbbing against the finger. 
When the pulse beats irregularly, as if it lost a beat, 
then hurried to make it up, there is something the 
matter with the heart. But, however unnatural you 
may think the pulse is, do not worry about it, take 
nothing, do nothing except by the advice of an intelli- 
gent physician. 



216 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 



f 



Rheumatism. 



Causes of Rheumatism. — The constant cool damp 
weather is productive of rheumatic affections of various 
kinds, in old and young. Care, great care must be ex- 
ercised in keeping the body sufficiently warm and dry, 
to avoid exposure, and never to go from home without 
rubber over-shoes, and umbrellas, when the indications 
even are for continued fair weather, to say nothing of 
rainy damp days. 

A garment wetted by perspiration or rain about a 
joint, and allowed to dry, when a person is in a state of 
rest, is the most common way of causing rheumatism. 
The very moment a garment is wetted, change it, or 
keep in motion sufficient to maintain a slight perspira- 
tion till the clothing is perfectly dried. Flannel worn 
next the skin, warmth and a light and cooling diet are 
the great preventives and remedies. Many a case of con- 
sumption has had its origin from sleeping in cold, camp 
beds. Many cases of serious visceral disorders have 
originated in this manner. Rheumatism quite common- 
ly follows, and proves a lifelong source of suffering and 
danger, and itself an early cause of death. Summer as 
well as winter days are full of moisture, and at nights as 
the temperature falls, the beds become veritable death 
traps. From warm clothing and with bodies aglow 
with a vigorous circulation, or bathed with perspiration 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 217 

from active exercise, the cold, clammy bed and its damp 
sheets enfold the form in deadly grip, and we wonder 
why our children pale and sicken, when we look after 
them perhaps in every other respect so carefully. 

Be sure to take off all of the underclothing worn by 
the child during the day upon going to bed. The night 
flannel should be of lighter material than that in daily 
use. Underclothing should be spread out upon chairs 
or hung up for a good airing every night, and if possi- 
ble, in some other than the bed-chamber. 

There is nothing that so promptly cuts short con- 
gestion of the lungs, sore throat or rheumatism as hot 
water when applied promptly and thoroughly. 

Rubbing: as a Treatment for Rheumatism. — 
People w^ho rub their arms or legs for rheumatism should 
remember that the secret of the benefit derived from 
massage is that the operator always rubs up — that is in 
the direction of the heart. The reason is found in the 
fact that the valves of the veins and capillaries all open 
towards the heart, and by rubbing in that direction the 
action of these vessels is assisted, the vessels themselves 
are enlarged, and circulation is more freely promoted. 
Rubbing down — that is, away from the heart — does 
harm, for it clogs the veins and capillaries by impeding 
the circulation without in the least assisting the action 
of the arteries, which lie too deep to be affected by ex- 
ternal friction, even if it could do them any good. 



218 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 



Pains. 

What Causes Pain ? — Pain is a blessing. It is 
the great life preserver. It is nature's warning voice. 
Your summer indiscretions might have destroyed your 
life in frequent instances, had it not been for this silent 
monitor. Pain is the result of pressure on or against a 
nerve. Of this you can easily convince yourself, if you 
have a hollow tooth, in which the nerve is exposed, and 
any object is pressed on it. When any part of the body 
receives extra pressure, by the blood vessels being ex- 
tended, pain is felt, because the nerves are pressed on 
by these blood vessels. This causes disquiet or pain. 
This is called "inflammation." If a person eats too 
much, or becomes constipated, or makes his blood im- 
pure, so that it becomes thickened, or clogged in its 
channels, the veins are distended and press on the 
nerves, which causes dull pain, headache, etc. Rheu- 
matism is one of the most painful afflictions to which 
human flesh is heir. It is the result' of the body, or 
certain parts of it, having been exposed or aflfected by 
injury, over- work, etc., and consequently causing an 
over pressure of blood or inflammation, a pressure on 
the nerves, a toothache or headache converted into a. 
bodyache. 

Distinguish Between Kinds. — It would be a great 
help to mothers, and would save not only much need- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 219 

less anxiety, but also many a doctor's bill and some- 
times even a life, if the distinction between a slight and 
a serious ailment were more generally understood. 
Overcaution and not undercaution is apt to be the pre- 
vailing tendency. A child or young person complains 
of severe pain in the chest and the mother at once 
fancies it is pneumonia ; or, if the trouble is in the 
bowels, peritonitis is the dreaded enemy, and so on. 
* * Pain without fever, ' ' said a well-known physician, 
**may be very severe and may cause much suffering, 
but in acute attacks it is not dangerous. If you had 
this amount of pain that you complain of," he said to 
the patient who had hastily summoned him, ' ' in any 
inflammatory disease, you would be in a raging fever ; 
if you have no fever, you need never worry." Most 
serious illnesses are preceded by a chill. This is a 
symptom that should never be disregarded, and it is 
always safe to put a child to bed and stop his food. 
Warmth and dieting will be found to be the best remedy 
for any ordinary indisposition, while for the beginning 
of serious trouble it is often the only thing that can be 
done until the disease declares itself. 

How Pain is Cured. — By removing the cause. 
If you have pain in the stomach, it is caused by an 
extra pressure there, most likely by eating too much. 
What is the remedy which nature suggests? Eat 
nothing and rest. In all cases where there is pain the 
alternative is to diminish the quantity of blood, either 
at the point of ailment or in the body in general, A 



220 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

mustard-plaster applied near a painful spot, by with- 
drawing the blood to itself, gives relief, opening a vein 
will do the same, so will a purgative medicine, or a 
* ' good sweat, ' ' or rubbing a part of the body. The 
rubbing reddens the skin, that is it causes the blood to 
flow toward and circulate in that part of the body which 
is rubbed, and consequently, abstracts it from the pain 
spot, where there is too much blood. 

How to Avert Pain. — It is always better to avert 
pain than to drive it away after it has been caused. 
The ounce of prevention is better than the pound of 
cure. If your shoe pinches and causes you pain, get a 
pair of larger ones, and lay the tighter ones aside till 
cooler weather comes on, when there will be less expan- 
sion of the blood vessels, your feet will be smaller, and 
then you can wear them again. If you have pain in 
the stomach and gripings of the bowels, eat less, and 
avoid stimulants. Use a lighter diet. Fruits, rice, 
vegetables should be eaten more, meats and fatty sub- 
stances less. Pepper, salt, spices, and condiments and 
stimulants, in general, act like the rubbing of the body, 
they cause extra friction, and hence pressure of the 
blood vessels in certain parts of the body, resulting in 
inflammation of those parts, therefore produce thirst, 
pain, etc. They should be avoided in warm weather. 
The bowels should be kept regular in their daily action. 
One action a day is indispensable to bodily health, vigor 
and endurance, and the avoidance of pain and summer 
sickness. This action is promoted, when there is a 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 221 

tendency to constipation, by stirring a table-spoonful of 
com meal in a glass of water, and drinking it, on rising 
in the morning. 



School Hygiene. 

Why Children Die Young. — ^While it is known to 
sanitarians that nearly every child born into the world 
can be reared to years of manhood or womanhood, yet 
the fact is that in the nineteenth century, from one- 
fourth to one-fifth of all the children born die before 
reaching ten years of age. What a murder of innocents! 
And in a Christian country! 

But why this state of things? Mainly on account 
of ignorance and indifference on the part of parents. 
These unfortunate little ones, who received the blessing 
of the Great Teacher, are born of parents who them- 
selves, and their ancestors before them, have violated 
nearly every law which governs their physical existence. 
They come into homes where no welcome awaits them. 
They are improperly fed, improperly dressed, without 
proper attention as to sleep, fresh air or cleanliness. It 
is not alone the children of the poor and ignorant who 
suffer in these respects, but in a very large degree also 



222 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

the children of the well-to-do, whose mothers, from 
improper and deficient education, as we believe, com- 
mit their helpless ofispring to the tender mercies of 
ignorant nurses, while they, the mothers, are active in 
temperance, missionary, church, charitable, or society 
duties. Shame, shame, that this is true, and yet it is. 
As an illustration, I was told a few days ago of an edu- 
cated woman, of a neighboring town, most active and 
eflficient in temperance work, whose own boys are grow- 
ing up in the streets while she devotes her time to others. 

Schools Should Teach Hygiene. — But what has 
this to do with school hygiene? This. To call the 
attention of teachers to the great need of educating the 
children, and parents, too, to the need of knowledge on 
these subjects. Sanitary science is a matter of first im- 
portance. It is not a branch, for which in school, '*we 
have no time," as a principal told me a few years ago. 
It is imperative. We owe it to every child to teach 
him the plain errors of living which bring disease and 
death. 

But people are beginning to appreciate these things. 
But a few days ago a matron of culture remarked in my 
presence: *'It is no longer fashionable to have delicate 
children about the home." The words show that the 
teachings of sanitarians are beginning to bear fruit. 

When in home and school the known principles of 
sanitary science are intelligently applied, we may expect 
a great diminution of sickness, suffering and premature 
deaths, and a corresponding increase of longevity and 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 223 

physical happiness. Contrary to the popular opinion, 
studious habits, even hard study, are not injurious to 
the general health. Rather, in well-regulated schools, 
the average health of the students will be found to be 
above that of those of the same age out of school. This 
is true of both young men and women. The statement 
applies to private schools where the whole time of the 
pupils is controlled, rather than to public day schools. 

Irregular habits, irregular eating and drinking, loss 
of sleep, lack of physical exercise, overwork, excitement 
are the causes of failure of physical power in students 
as in other persons. 

Pupils Need Good Food — I once remarked that 
the young ladies of a female seminary made very little 
progress in their studies, when the answer quickly came, 
* 'what more could you expect, remembering what they 
have to eat?" I suspect this evil is a general one in 
homes and schools. Bread and coffee are not enough to 
start the day upon if much work is to be done. 

School children do not have enough sleep as a rule. 
For children under twelve or thirteen years, ten hours 
out of each twenty- four should be spent in sleep, and 
all other students should have at least eight hours of 
sound sleep each night. This is most important. 

School hours are for young children entirely too 
long. Not over three hours for children under thirteen, 
and five hours for all others. 

One of the modern innovations most to be con- 
demned is the abolition of recess. A prominent teacher 



224 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

of a neighboring county in defending this movement 
remarked that *'if factory children can do without a 
recess, certainly school children can do without it." 



Examination and Study Hours, 

At this time the foundations of nervous diseases, 
prostration of physical powers, injury to the eyesight, 
that will necessitate wearing glasses, and a general break 
down of the constitution are laid. 

Long hours of study in close and crowded rooms 
are not only permitted but encouraged. Girls between 
the ages of twevle and sixteen should not be allowed to 
study for more than five hours a day. But the general 
rule is that the pupils reach school at eight in the morn- 
ing, remain there till twelve, returning at one, and 
leaving at four. The evening is then spent in prepar- 
ing the lessons for the next day. This goes on from 
Monday morning till Friday night. The tired girls 
stoop and crouch over their books, and seek relief in 
attitudes that would horrify the physiologist. The re- 
sult is that shoulders grow out, spines incline to curve, 
chests contract instead of expanding, and backs grow 
round instead of flat and erect. Mothers are too much 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 225 

inclined to neglect the physical training of their young 
daughters, naturally enough rating intellectual acquire- 
ments above bodily powers. They need reminding that 
a healthy body, such as is produced by gentle, easy 
modes of muscular training, is absolutely necessary to 
the full development of the mental powers. But a small 
minority of teachers comprehend the subtle relation be- 
tween brain and muscle ; and not until this is the case 
will education proceed as it ought to do, the physical 
and the mental marching hand-in-hand, each perhaps 
stopping a little now and then to wait for the other as 
good comrades should. The girls should acquire an 
easy carriage, erect and graceful, and be released during 
class hours at least, from the pressure of the corset. 
Girls should be taught to abandon this much meledicted 
article of attire, and they will very jertainly emerge 
from its thraldom with fine physique and a grace of gait 
and contour, to which no mental or intellectual quality 
will have been sacrificed. 

Avoid Night Study. — Parents should see to it 
that their girls are not driven too hard during their years 
of development into womanhood. They should take 
care that both boys and girls should not study too hard 
at certain diurnal periods, for instance immediately be- 
fore bedtime. It is well known that hard study imme- 
diately before retiring to r^st will do much towards in- 
juring the health and preventing sleep. Great mental 
application, continued until too near the time of retir- 
ing, or beyond the usual hour, keeps the blood within 
the head at the time when it should leave it. 



226 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

If examinations and graduation mean, as is so often 
tlie case, a sacrifice of health, strength, eyesight, the 
sweet rest of the night, and a general break down, the 
results of which are perceptible, if not throughout life, 
at least for years, then the sooner they are abandoned 
the better. 

Normal School Health. — Normal school students, 
as a rule, confine themselves too closely to their studies 
and do not take sufficient exercise. The consequence 
is that some of the most promising students break down 
in health before they teach two years. They do not 
sleep enough. Some allow themselves only six hours 
sleep. Nobody can deprive himself of sleep with im- 
punity. Young persons must have eight hours sleep. 
Normal students frequently eat too rapidly. They 
swallow their food without proper mastication, and even, 
frequently without chew^ing it properly. They take up 
too many studies, and experience by the end of the term 
that they have gained a mere smattering of the 
branches. I^et the rule be 7io7i miUta^ sed multa. 



Plants in the Sleeping Room. 

The prejudice prevails that plants in the sleeping 
room are injurious because they are constantly throwing 
off carbonic acid. Recent investigations have shown 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 227 

that ill effects are altogether too slight to deserve con- 
sideration. If a room is properly ventilated, plants can 
do no harm, and even if it is not, the quantity of car- 
bonic acid exhaled by them will not materially affect the 
purity of the air. 



Hints on Hygiene for Children. 

To Parents or Guardians. — See to it that the 
child goes to school in a proper condition. This means, 
first of all, cleanliness all over. A child not washed all 
over at least each week, with v/arm or cool water, is not 
fit for school. Some will need a bath oftener. Child- 
ren need to wash the face and hands, and to comb and 
brush out the hair at night as well as morning. Let 
the mouth be rinsed with water, morning and eve- 
ning, or the teeth be brushed, so as to have a pure 
breath. 

Have clean, thin flannel for clothing, next to the 
skin, with such additional outside garments as may be 
necessary for warmth, and shoes and stockings that will 
protect the feet from dampness. A dry pair of socks and 
a clean handkerchief are not amiss in the satchel. I^et 
no child start for school with damp clothing. When 
active, we can bear dampness awhile, but to sit in wet 



228 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

clothing is always taking a risk. Tell the child, if 
damp or chilly, to let the teacher know it. 

A good, plain unhurried breakfast is always impor- 
tant to the school child. The young are better off with- 
out coffee or tea ; but some may need a warm drink for 
breakfast in cold weather, such as sweetened water, 
sugar and milk, and water or milk flavored with cocoa. 

See that the child gets plenty of good sleep, in a 
well-aired room, and does not go to bed just from the 
book, so as to be tired and anxious about a lesson. 

When the child is really unwell, do not send him 
to school just for the name of being punctual. The pa- 
rent should judge and decide wisely, mindful that head- 
ache, pain or weariness in a child always requires rest. 
If your child is sick, or if there is sickness in the family 
have the judgment of your doctor as to the time of 
staying at home. 

To the Child. — You must learn how to take care 
of your own health. Others may tell you, but exper- 
ience and advice should early lead you to feel how im- 
portant it is not to abuse the body. Help your parents 
and teachers to keep you clean and neat. Be clean in 
person, in thought, in word, in action. A child that 
has clean feet, clean hands, clean nails, clean ears, and 
combed hair, is generally clean and neat. 

To get peevish or worried over a lesson is not 
wholesome. Get, if need be, a part of your lesson 
at home. The load is often too heavy, because we try 
to carry too much of it at once, or in too short a time. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 229 

In sitting, do not lean over too much or too con- 
stantly. While standing, stand erect. Neither fold the 
arms in front nor put them behind, but let them hang 
naturally and easily at the side. In studying, try to have 
enough light without a glare ; if light or print troubles 
you, tell the teacher. If you are really unwell, let him 
know it ; a headache that may not require you to go 
home may be a reason for change of position, or rest from 
study ; only be upright, and do not pretend. In all 
things seek to take good care of your health, since your 
happiness and usefulness so much depend upon it. 

To the Teacher. — Children must not hang damp 
or soiled over-clothing in a close, unaired room, against 
other damp or wet garments. Each child's clothing 
should be kept by itself 

Walls often need whitewashing, kalsomining or 
painting, and all wood-work should be frequently and 
thoroughly washed. Sweeping carefully under the desks 
and dusting are important. The condition of the rooms, 
the distribution of desks according to size of persons, 
light, variation in study and position, exercise, airing of ^ 
rooms while empty, moderation of competition, assort- 
ment of work to the capacity of the child, and quickness 
to perceive the occasion for temporary variations and 
adjustments, are essential in the skilled oversight of the 
teacher ; he must feel that he has this charge to keep. 

School Room Hygiene. — The great importance of 
keeping the school room and the family sitting room suf- 
ficiently warm and dry, can not be dwelt upon too often 



230 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

or too long. A tliermometer should be suspended on the 
wall, not higher than three feet above the floor. A 
thermometer suspended near the ceiling may indicate a 
temperature of 68, while near the floor, owing to cold 
drafts and the rising of warm air, the temperature may 
be under 60. This is entirely too low to sit still by six 
hours, or even one. The temperature should not fall 
below 60 at the floor, which presupposes about 70 at our 
heads when standing. The school room and the family 
sitting room should have this temperature in the morning, 
and not a freezing ice-house temperature at 9 o'clock, 
and a torrid zone at 11, and then, perhaps, again a de- 
crease toward evening. Colds will certainly be caught 
where such changes occur. A warm room presupposes 
a dry one, though not always. The room should be dry, 
and the children's clothing in damp, slushy weather 
particularly so. If they come to school with damp 
clothes, and wet feet, lose no moment in getting them 
dry. There should be a shed, or roof of some kind, 
under which the children can play in damp weather. 

I/ight. — Get a piece of sensitized paper from a pho- 
tographer. Hold it in the light, and see how soon it 
turns dark. The sunlight has a similar effect on the 
human body, wherever it is exposed. A dark brown 
color is much sought after by city people, and, hence, 
they resort to the country and the seashore, and are proud 
to return with browned faces and hands. Clerks employed 
in factories, and other persons, who spend most of the 
time in the house, soon turn, like potato vines in the 



CO HON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 281 

cellar, pale, emaciated and sickly. School children do 
the same, when the sunlight is but imperfectly admitted 
into the house. So do older people if they live in houses 
from which the sun's rays are excluded, by blinds, cur- 
tains and shutters. In other words if they remain long 
in dark rooms. Such a state of affairs should be avoided, 
and God's sunlight given free access to our apartments. 
What a wonderful influence, yea, healing power the sun- 
light has when allowed to fall on us and our children, as 
God designs that it should, and as he has made it to do, 
if we do not interpose obstacles and thus interfere with 
his plans. Open shutter and blinds and roll up the cur- 
tains, so that the light can fall on you and yours. It 
will pay you in the health which 3^ou receive thereby. 
We must, of course, avoid the other extreme, and not 
injure our eyesight by facing the sun, sitting with our 
faces turned tov/ard the brilliant sunlight, as it pierces 
through the windows. School desks should always be 
placed so that the light falls on the backs of the pupils, 
and that they sit facing a blank wall. 

Fresh Air. — Get a plentiful supply of this all im- 
portant agent. Remember, you inhale enough air, if 
you are alone in an ordinary room, to contaminate what- 
ever air there is in the room, in less than thirty minutes, 
if there is no provision made for a fresh supply. In a 
school room, .where from 20 to 30 children are assembled, 
the air becomes surcharged v/ith poisonous carbonic acid 
gas, in a few minutes. ' This can be proved by a simple 
Experimeiit. Place a lighted candle in a deep jar and 



233 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

breathe into it. In a few moments the flame expires. 
Such air is unfit, dangerous to inhale. Throw doors 
and windows wide open occasionally, to admit a plentiful 
supply of fresh air. But especially have arrangements 
provided for ventilating your school room, sitting room, 
bed room, etc. 

See that your school room is kept sweet and clean 
with plenty of fresh air. Keep the supply of oxygen 
abundant. It will help your pupils' brain work vastly. 
2,000 cubic feet of fresh air are required every hour for 
each pupil for proper ventilation. See that they have it. 

At every expiration about 200 cu. c. m. of air is ex- 
pelled, over 4 per cent, of which is carbonic dioxide 
which is unfit to breathe. Do not allow your pupils to 
sit in the room for hours with no Iresh air, breathing 
the foul exhalations from twenty lungs. 

School Ventilation Very Poor. — Do we wonder 
that children grow restless or languid, complain of head- 
aches and backaches and dullness when they are impri- 
soned in rooms whose atmospheric condition would not 
compare unfavorably with the Black Hole of Calcutta? 
If your school house is not ventilated with modern ap- 
paratus, and if it is, it is most likely good for nothing 
— d'jvise a plan yourself ; at all events give the matter 
your attention. 

Dr. R. Harvey Reed, in a paper read at a society 
meeting in Denver recently, bore heavily upon the ter- 
rible fault of insufficient ventilation in schools. He said 
that from the moment they are born until they draw the 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 233 

shroud around them for their last sleep the great army 
of people who live indoors are breathing impure air. 
They send their children to school where they breathe 
and rebreathe the air over and over again. Nay more, 
the putrid breath of the syphilitic and tuberculous child 
is inhaled by the child with rosy cheeks and a sound 
constitution from the beginning to the end of the school 
year. You would scorn the idea of having but one hand- 
kerchief, tooth brush or toothpick for each school room, 
and having your children all compelled to use them daily 
in common with the rest of the scholars, but you sit with 
folded hands and peaceful conscience while your children 
violate sanitary laws a thousand times worse by the in- 
halation of millions of cubic feet of foul and even putrid 
air from their diseased classmates or daily associates each 
school year. 

How to remedy the matter is, however a most im- 
portant question. The lowering or raising of windows 
is the most convenient and generally resorted to plan. 
The remedy, however, is often worse than the disease. 
Colds, resulting in serious diseases, and even in death, 
may be contracted in consequence. A draught of cold 
air, descending on the head or back is more injurious 
than even the foulest air, 

Windows should never be lowered or raised so as to 
admit cold air on a person. If a current of air can be 
forced through a portion of a room, where it does not 
strike the inmates, or if a current can be made to pass 
around, from the top to the bottom of the window, by 



234 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

lowering the upper and raising the lower sash, so that 
no one is struck by this current, a room may be partially 
ventilated in this way. 

Opening doors and windows at recess, when no one 
is in the room, will answer the purpose of ventilation for 
a short time, and furnish at least a temporary supply of 
fresh air. 

An Excellent Method. — The following method 
of ventilation has frequently been published, in books 
and school journals. It is a very excellent one. 

Open a hole under the stove, and be certain that it 
communicates with pure air out of doors. A tight wooden 
box, about six inches square, can open directly under 
the stove, and halfway to the eaves outside. The ends 
should be closed by sliding doors. At the opening of 
school both ends of this duct should be closed, but as the 
room becomes heated, and foul air accumulates, open 
doors enough to admit a sufficient quantity of fresh air. 
With this arrangement no window should be opened ex- 
cept in case of smoke or dust. 

To Get Foul Air Out of the School Room.— - 
Open a door in the ceiling, and be certain that it com- 
municates with pure air. If the ceiling is directly under 
the roof, it will be sufficient to let the heated air escape 
into the space under the shingles, but if another room 
is above, care must be taken to be certain that the door 
communicates with out-doors. This is essential, or open- 
ing the door will be of no account. Several small open- 
ings in diffisrent parts of the ceiling, closed by sliding 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 235 

doors, are better than large ones. How large these open- 
ings in the ceiling are made, depends upon the difference 
of temperature between in-doors and out-doors. 

The foul air in a heated room is near the ceiling. 

The foul air in a cold room is near the floor. 

Hot air is not necessarily foul air. 



Spring Health Notes. 

At this season, when warm weather comes on, a 
person is apt to feel languid and drowsy after dinner. 
Do not let your laziness overpower you. Shake off the 
giant from your shoulders by keeping active. Don' t eat 
much salad. It is one of the poppy plants and contains 
opium, which makes you stupid. If you want to sleep 
well at night, avoid sleeping a moment during daylight. 

Don't Diminisli the Clothing too Soon. — Serious 
and even fatal sickness is often caused by a change of 
clothing, — not, indeed, by putting on more or warmer 
clothing, but by diminishing it inconsiderately. It is 
very unsafe to lessen the amount of clothing sooner than 
the first of May, though some of our readers, and many 
other persons will be foolhardy enough again this year, 
as often before, to do so in April. It should be borne in 



236 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

mind, and especially impressed on children, that such a 
thing as changing even from a heavier to a lighter 
quality of clothing, when the first pleasant days of spring 
come on, is very imprudent. At no season are overshoes 
so important as just at this. In Winter, when the ground 
is frozen, or even when the earth is covered with snow, 
rubbers are not as necessary, as in the slush and mud of 
April. 

Wear Woolen Clothing. — ^When a change of cloth- 
ing is made, it should be only, however, to lighter 
material, from yarn socks to worsted; from a thick, knit- 
ted flannel shirt to one of common woolen flannel. Woolen 
flannels next the skin should be the rule all the year 
round. Silk shirts next the skin, with their electric in- 
fluences, are a humbug. 

Woolens keep the natural heat about the body, be- 
cause wool is a poor conductor of heat. It is, therefore^ 
best to v/ear woolens next the skin in cool weather. Wool 
absorbs the moisture of perspiration very rapidly, and 
keeps the skin measurably dry. It is, therefore, best to 
wear woolens next the skin in warm weather. Hence, 
woolens should be worn all the year. In the night, espe- 
cially when there is a debilitated condition of the system, 
a woolen flannel night dress should be worn, to prevent 
that sepulchral dampness and chilliness which annoys 
many persons. 

The warm under-flannel is too often left off" or is re- 
placed by a cotton garment, and the overcoat or woolen 
shawl or wrap is thrown aside. Suddenly there comes a 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 237 

rapid fall in the temperature and a biting east wind. The 
penalty is the infliction of recurrent disease in those who 
have been recovering from winter illness, and the prostra- 
tion of many who throughout the winter have held on 
free of all disease, other than that sense of a deficient 
vital power which the long treat of winter cold inflicts 
even on the most robust. 

Do not be a fool and take off your under-clothes 
when the first few warm Spring days come. 

More injury results to health, in the Spring of the 
year, from this practice than from all others combined. 
In a changeable climate like ours it is not safe to discard 
flannels till June, nor to go away from home without an 
overcoat. Many of the Texas people wear flannels the 
whole year. The British soldiers in India are required 
to wear flannel all the year. Many of the colds and other 
diseases of Spring can be warded off by wearing flannels 
next the skin. Children should not be allowed to dis- 
pense with stockings, nor to go barefoot before the raw, 
damp weather of Spring is entirely over. It is a mistake 
to suppose that children can be hardened by baring their 
skin. They may be sickened and killed, but not made 
healthy in this way. 

Chang-es Should be Made in the Morning.— 
If you change your clothing, from thick to thinner, or 
by laying off the underclothes at this season, do it in the 
morning. If you make the change after dinner, the 
cool and dampness of the evening will soon overtake you, 
a chilliness will run oyer you, you have taken cold, and 



238 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

it will settle in your eyes, cause your nose to run, create 
a tickling in the throat, and produce pleurisy, pneu- 
monia, bronchitis, or diarrhea which may cause your 
death in a few days. 

Teachers and parents can not place too much stress 
upon the necessity of children wearing their heavier flan- 
nels and clothes, until constant warm weather has set in, 
even then not to be too hasty in making a change, from 
heavier to lighter. 

Exercise in the Spring. — That is the weather 
that causes us to neglect out-door exercise. But it 
should not. Promptly at three o'clock the notary goes 
to the bank, through sleet and storm, and howling 
winds, and the thermometer 20 below zero, and writes 
** protested" on all notes, which have not been met. 
The weather is no excuse to him, nor to the bank ; even 
death is no apology for the failure to meet a bank en- 
gagement. Business is business, rain or shine. 

Bxercise is highly necessary, and, yet in the way it 
is frequently taken is the sheerest nonsense. Students, 
clerks, persons of sedentary habits and employments 
know that exersise is essential to their health. Con- 
vinced of this and feeling dullness and lassitude, induced 
in the system by the sudden warm weather of spring, 
the thermometer up in the nineties, they go about exer- 
cising with a spasmodic desperation, as if they expected 
to take enough in an hour to last them a week or a month. 
They rush out with a rake, axe, spade, hoe, or some 
other article, as if they were going to take everything 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 239 

by storm. In an hour or two their strength is exhaus- 
ted, they feel as '"''weak as a cat^^'' as ''^limber as a dish 
toweV The whole body is "in a stew," the clothes 
soaked with perspiration, they are weary, worn out, 
overheated, and make for the house. Hat, coat or 
shawl are flung aside, down they go on the sofa to cool, 
off. They fall asleep, or take an early supper and go to 
bed. They wake up haggard, sickish, "stiff as an old 
horse," sore in the joint, limb and muscle. They feel 
more dead than alive for days ; exercise does not agree 
with them, and no wonder. All this, because they did 
not use any common sense in what they did. Nonsense. 
Exercise must be Moderate and of short dura- 
tion at first, increasing from day to day. The moment 
you stop exercising put on extra garments, sit down by 
a fire and wait fifteen minutes, before you take off your 
hat or extra garments, then wash your face and hands 
in tepid water, eat a light supper, and retire to bed at 
the usual hour. You will enjoy a sound sleep, have a 
keen appetite in the morning, never felt better in your 
life, your common sense exercise has given you a fresh- 
ness and vigor that is surprising. 

If you take a walk for exercise, do not ' ' rush like 
a fool " as if you were running for a wager, your 
thoughts all the time on your studies and employments. 
Lay aside and forget all these, take a fevv^ pleasant com- 
panions with you, have a rollicking time, jump Jim 
Crow, sing, ' ' cut up all kinds of monkey shines, ' ' and 
you will be surprised at the results. 



240 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

Never, when in perspiration, permit the clothing to 
dry on you. If you are caught in a shower and drenched 
do not permit the clothing to dry on you. The process 
of drying wet or damp clothing requires so much heat 
from the body, that deprived of this heat, it will cool 
down below the proper temperature. You will be 
chilled, take a cold, become a sufferer, a consumptive, 
and may die in consequence. Always keep in active 
motion, exercise vigorously till your clothes are perfectly 
dry, or hurr' home and change your wet clothes at 
once. 

Springf Diet. — Banish meat and grease from your 
breakfast and supper tables. At dinner eat lean meat 
only, if any. Use eggs, celery, spinach, hominy, and 
stewed fruit, something that contains acid. Canned 
goods are very cheap and very wholesome, especially 
tomatoes. Keep the body clean. Spend as much time 
as possible out of doors snuffing in spring air. Have a 
good fire to come and sit by, with all your garments on, 
for eight or ten minutes after all forms of exercise, 
otherwise your exercise will do you more harm than 
good. 

Surroundings of Buildings and Premises. — 
Warmth develops and sets free noxious gases from the 
surface of the earth. Poisonous effluvia are set free, in 
the vicinity of buildings and from damp cellars, which 
form the fruitful source of dire and deadly diseases. 
Scarlet fever, diphtheria, malarial fevers, smallpox and 
other maladies are bred in this way. Cold weather may 



COMBION SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 241 

whitewash miasm, but does not destroy it. As the 
snow melts and ice and frost come out of the ground, 
miasm is warmed into life. The refuse matter that has 
been thrown about buildings, greasy water poured out, 
decaying animal and vegetable matter, lying about the 
house or filling the cellar, in the shape of half-rotten 
potatoes, apples, turnips and whatever of this sort has 
been stored away for winter use, now begin to emit an 
unpleasant odor, warning the occupants of the house of 
danger. More frequently, however, the poison is so 
attenuated that it produces no perceptible odor, and is 
thus but the source of greater mischief. Imperceptibly 
but surely the dangerous and deadly work goes on, and 
many a precious life is offered as a sacrifice, while others, 
amid great suffering, are brought to death's door, and 
only escape from death to endure that which is perhaps 
worse than death, a life of suffering and misery, wrecked 
physically and mentally. 

Should be Cleaned from Cellar to Attic— 
How important and necessary that at this season, build- 
ings should be cleaned from cellar to attic, that the sur- 
roundings of houses, school-houses and out-buildings 
should be made and kept scrupulously clean and sweet ! 
The cellars should be emptied of all decaying substances, 
v/ashed and fumigated. K\\ refuse matter should be 
removed from yards and the immediate neighborhood of 
the buildings. Sinks and privies should be cleaned. 
Chloride of lime should' be scattered several times a 
week around the house and in the cellar, as long as 



242 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

-damp weather continues. One pound of copperas dis- 
solved in two gallons of water should be kept at hand, 
and the liquid poured by the tin-cup full, every few days 
into water closets and sinks. Thus, will poisonous gases 
be neutralized and set free, and prevented from breeding 
diseases and death. 

Teacher, parent, everybody, as you value your and 
your children's life and health, attend to this matter. 
It may require a little attention and labor, but it will 
pay you, this wet damp spring, a hundred-fold, if you 
do so. 






COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. ^43 



A Strange Fever. 

spring Fever and Common Sense.— It is neither 
typhoid nor bilious fever nor yet the grip. It is the 
fever that attacks the boy, and causes him to skip school, 
or shirk work. Sometimes older people are affected by 
it also. It is the fever that inclines people to throw 
aside underwear and heavier clothing, and, after some 
exertion, to sit down on the ground and ^' catch cold.'* 

The only cure for it is strong will power, determi- 
nation to stick to school and work, and feel the better 
afterwards for having done our duty. Keep on wearing 
your flannels, or, if you must do so, change for lighter 
ones, but do not allow yourself to become fool enough 
to throw aside all underwear, and then, in a few days, 
when a cooler wave strikes us to be caught by a heavy 
cold. 

Nellie Burns makes the following sensible remarks, 
on another kind of Spring Fever, in the Plowmait. It 
contains much good common sense : 

Another kind of Spring Fever. — When a house- 
keeper finds herself so overburdened with hard work, 
her first step would be to subdue her energy. Some- 
times one will do very imprudent things at such a time 
through an excess of energy and ambition. For in- 
stance, a housekeeper fired with enthusiasm over her 
house-cleaning, will commence her work on a most 



244 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

elaborate scale. The house is torn up all through. 
Every room is thrown into a disagreeable confusion, and 
in order to get the house restored to a living condition 
as soon as possible, she is compelled to work far beyond 
her strength. By the time she gets through her strength 
is gone, her patience is gone, her good humor is gone, 
her nerves are unstrung ; and a wife and mother in such 
a condition is not one of nature's most attractive objects, 
you know. 

It is a much wiser plan for the housekeeper to 
moderate her ambition to accord with her physical pow- 
ers, even though she is much longer in accomplishing 
her task. In house-cleaning it is a good method to 
clean only one room at a time. The house-keeper 
should then rest for a day or two, engaging herself in 
light work only, then another room can be undertaken. 
In this way she is not overv/orked, the home is not 
thrown in disorder, the husband and children are spared 
the painful sight and sound of an over- tired, nervous, 
irritable wife and mother. 




COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 245 



Sleep. 

Sleep the Best Medicine. — ^'Nature's sweet res- 
torer, balmy sleep. " "If he sleepeth he doeth well.'' 
Numerous passages like these can be quoted, both from 
inspired and uninspired writings, on the importance of 
good, sound sleep. 

Eight hours of healthful sleep, each night, are ne- 
cessary for all ordinary mortals. A few exceptional 
cases, such as that of Alexander Von Humboldt, may be 
quoted, where individuals slept only four hours, and lived 
to the age of ninety. Hundreds of examples of men, 
great and useful as Humboldt, can be adduced, who tried 
to cheat nature out of its required rest, reducing their 
hours for sleep to the minimum, and, thereby, un- 
questionably shortened their lives by many years. Sleep 
is the best medicine, the surest restorative, worth more 
than all the nostrums, specifics, and curatives, allopathic 
and homeopathic. ^ 

]^arly Rising is positively injurious to health, un- 
less it is preceded by early retiring. Retire at nine and 
rise at five, or retire at ten and rise at six. This gives 
nature enough for sleep, provided not more than half an 
hour is lost in falling asleep, otherwise make the time 
for rising half an hour later. 

Let us not be misunderstood, we do not find fault 
with early rising. It is heartily recommended, especially 



246 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

at the season, when the sun rises before five. O, what 
a grand spectacle to go out into the great temple of nature, 
and hear the concert of the birds, as they warble their 
sweet notes, in praise of the great Creator ! But early 
rising must be preceded by early retiring, or it is a crime 
against the body. 

Never rise immediately on wakening. It is too 
severe a strain on the system. Never force or drag a 
child out of bed, the moment he is awakened. Never 
rouse him out of a sound sleep, the nervous system may 
be wrecked for life thereby. 

Always ease your nerves by pleasant reading or 
conversation before retiring, so that you may fall 
asleep as soon as you reach the bed. Don't sleep 
under heavy cover. It will interfere with the circulation 
of your blood, and cause you unpleasant dreams. Two 
comfortables, or a comfortable and a blanket are entirely 
sufficient. If not warm enough under these place a few 
newspapers pasted together at the edges between them. 
Always have plenty of fresh air in your bed room. Even 
in the coldest weather the sash of a window may be low- 
ered a few inches, to admit fresh air. The temperature 
of the bed room should not be above 65 degrees. 

No Sleep Bring-s Death in nineteen days. Crazy 
people can not sleep. A thin yankee, so keen for money 
making, that his eye penetrates you, goes to bed at mid- 
night, and is ready to drive a sharp bargain, by five in 
the morning. He will be dried up, shriveled like a mum- 
my, the skin clinging to his bones, by the time he is 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 247 

forty. He evaporates before he is aware of it. A fat, 
lazy, beer drinking Dutchman, who never was fairly 
awake yet, since his birth, and is as brown as a ham, 
smoking his long-stemmed tobacco pipe, lives to see the 
third and the fourth generation. 

One of the very best men of this century, while at 
college, retired at midnight and arose at six. He should 
have had at least eight hours sound sleep, in every twency- 
four. When he should have been in his best days, he 
was misanthropic, crabbed, spleenic, morose, silly, chur- 
lish and sinfully despondent. He said so himself. He 
did not reach threescore years. 

Insufficient sleep, every physician will tell you, lays 
the foundation to premature death. Every one knows 
what disagreeable feelings a single sleepless night will 
produce. 

The Young Man in the plenitude of his youthful 
power is apt to disregard the necessity for the rest that 
nature demands. Released perhaps but recently from 
the supervision of prudent parents, he glories in disdain- 
ing the oft-repeated precept of "early to bed," declares 
that time was made for slaves, and that he "wont go 
home till morning." Such young men make a declara- 
tion of independence, but a sorry show of wisdom. How- 
ever robust of constitution, the young man who abridges 
the hours of rest that nature demands will find that he 
cannot trespass upon her laws with impunity; that he has 
encouraged a habit of sleeplessness which he cannot throw 
of as middle life approaches; that the natural growth and 



248 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

nutrition of the body is interfered with; and that neither 
the pleasure nor the work of the day is entered into with 
customary zest and energy. 

The Man Wlio Puts in 20 Hours. — The business 
man, the literary, or the professional man in the pursuit 
of fame or fortune, endowed with good health and spurred 
on by ambition, is jealous of time not spent in effecting 
his special aim, and neglects to give to sleep and restora- 
tion their proper dues. For some time, perhaps, he boast-, 
fully congratulates himself on his ability to disdain na- 
ture's laws with impunity, but his delusion is short-lived; 
such a man, soon finds that his capacity for work is 
limited, his thoughts are not so ready at hand, his per- 
ceptions are blurred, his judgment less shrewd; and most 
fortunate is he if, when he finds he is in desperate need 
of sleep, he can successfully woo her. 

Take Plenty of Nature* s Sweet Restorer.— 
There are many persons in the world to-day who are un- 
availingly taking medicine for that relief which they fail 
to secure, when all they want is 7nore sleep. We were 
recently consulted about a bright and active young busi- 
ness man who, after a full day of business, would spend 
the evening until midnight in temperate social pleasures, 
then two hours would be passed with the latest new book, 
none of which ever missed, while he is always up and 
dressed by 7 a. va. Gradually he is growing thin and 
thinner, and, while not really sick, it is noted by friends 
that his appetite and relish for food are gradually grow- 
ing less, day by day. This 3'oung man is on the ^^CoU" 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 249 

sumption Turnpike^^^ and no medicine will halt his 
course ; what he wants, and what all like him require, 
is more sleep. We can take it, as a rule, that anyone 
who habitually sits up until after midnight, getting up 
early in the morning, is killing himself; we mean what 
we say. Take plenty of sleep. 

One of the greatest teachers of the land advised his 
students, always to carry a book in the pocket, and to 
take it out and read it, while waiting for an appointment 
or for sitting down to a dinner. He believed in his 
theor}^, put it in practice, died early, — and demented. 
The brain must have rest. 

Words of Our Savior. — Our Lord and Savior said 
of Lazarus, ''if he sleepeth he doeth well." There is no 
better medicine for a sick person than sleep, and to a well 
person sleep is the greatest preventive of sickness. Stu- 
dents, women and nervous persons need all the sleep they 
can possibly get ; so do the melancholy and those who 
are in trouble. If those who go to church to sleep during 
serv^ices, would take more sleep of a Sunday morning, or, 
better still, retire earlier on Saturday night, they would 
be able to keep wide awake under the sermon. 

Children and Sleep. — Require your children to be 
in bed by the time the clock strikes nine, summer and 
winter, except on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, 
and occasionally at other times, in case of parties, wed- 
dings, and the like, for amusements and diversions are 
essential to the well-being of children ; besides, it is not 
well to bring them up to inflexible rules, as if they were 



250 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES 

machines, or to bring them under the tyranny of Medo- 
Persian laws, which admit of no repeal or change. This 
early retiring will do much toward preventing the early 
ruin of the e3'es, by artificial light, and will also secure 
that liberally abundant sleep and rest to the brain, es- 
sential to bodily health and mental integrity. It is an 
undeniable and often-observed fact, that a failure to get 
abundant sleep lays many a promising child in an early 
grave, by inflammation of the brain. Too little exercise 
and too continuous study do the same thing ; and when 
lack of sleep, lack of exercise, lack of out-door, are com- 
bined with insufferable drillings at school, and impossible 
lessons at home, wx can not wonder at the multitude of 
deaths of children from convulsions, nervous and brain 
diseases, from debility and wasting away. Let it be re- 
membered that the more sleep a child can get during the 
night-time, the more quickly and readily and easily will 
all the studies be comprehended ; and to this end, if the 
child is put to bed at a regular, early hour, the rule should 
be imperative that it should never be waked up in the 
morning. Nature will always do that with unerring cer- 
tainty, just as soon as sufficient sleep has been had to 
repair the wastes of the preceding day, and provide a 
stock of strength to be drawn upon for the day to come. 
This is a beautiful law of our nature, and ought not to 
be contravened, for it can never be interfered with, with 
impunity, especially as to the young. 

Children should not be permitted to cover the head 
with bedclothes ; such a habit is harmful and results in 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 251 

"unrefreshing sleep, since they are thus deprived of pure 
air, and rebreathe that already laden with the carbonic 
acid of their own exhalations. The child from earliest 
infancy should sleep alone. Nothing is more subversive 
of good habits in sleeping and nursing than for the infant 
to occupy the same bed with the mother ; the custom so 
often followed invariably results in restless, unrefreshing 
nights to both. The child is easily influenced by habit, 
and the judicious mother, with a slight hardening of her 
own heart for a few nights, can readily teach her little 
one to expect to be put in the crib and to go to sleep 
without such unnecessary aid as rocking or singing. 
Much harm has been done by giving to wakeful infants 
laudanum or morphine under the specious name of ' 'sooth- 
ing syrups. ' ' A well child is not fretful at night, and 
if sick it needs other treatment. 

Children Should Not Sleep With Older Persons. 
— A habit which is considerably prevalent m almost 
every family of allowing children to sleep with older 
persons, has ruined the nervous vivacity and physical 
energy of many a promising child. Every parent who 
loves his child, and wishes to preserve to him a sound 
nervous system, with which to buffet successfully the 
cares, sorrows, and labors of life, must see to it that his 
nervous vitality is not absorbed by some diseased or aged 
relative. 

Children, compared with adults, are electrically in 
a positive condition. The rapid changes which are go- 
ing on in their little^bodies, abundantly generate and 



252 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

as extensively work up vital nervo-electric fluids. But 
when, by contact for long nights with elder and negative 
persons, the vitalizing electricity of their tender organi- 
zations is absorbed, they soon pine, grow pale, languid, 
and dull, while their bed companions feel a correspond- 
ing invigoration. 

Examples. — It was sought in the olden time to 
invigorate King David, the psalmist, by causing a 
young and vigorous and healthy person to sleep with 
him. Although it failed of the desired effect, it proved 
that there was a popular impression that healthy influ- 
ences were absorbed by one party. Be that as it may, it 
is undeniable that healthy influences are lost, and to a 
fatal extent sometimes. 

A woman was prostrated with incurable consump- 
tion. Her infant occupied the same bed with her almost 
constantly day and night. The mother lingered for 
months on the verge of the grave — her demise being 
hourly expected. Still she lingered on disproving the 
predictions of her medical attendants. The child, mean- 
while, pined without any apparent disease. Its once fat 
little cheeks fell away with singular rapidity till every 
bone it its face was visible. Finally it had imparted to 
the mother its last spark of vitality, and simultaneously 
both died. 

Sleeping Rooms Must be Ventilated. — Perhaps 
the case is that of a young man or woman. An eight 
by ten bed room, with every door, and window, and 
avenue for the access of fresh air closed, is the sleeping 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 253 

room. Sleep to this individual is not "kind nature's 
sweet restorer. ' ' The night is miserably spent in tossing 
from side to side awaking from unpleasant dreams, 
with headache and nausea every hour of the night, and 
yet with too much of a sleepy sensation to get up even 
in the morning, when the sun is already in the heavens. 
The parents call "Hallo ! John, get up! Sallie, 
get the breakfast ! These are answered by a drawling, 
drowsy, "yes! yes! I'm coming," and then a turn in 
the bed, sleep again overtakes the person, and soon he 
is gone to the land of Nod. Again in a few more 
minutes the call is repeated, ' 'Why don' t you get up ?' ' 
and again answered the same as before. At last, after 
a desperate effort he rises but oh ! how he feels ; he 
never felt more sleepy, the bed never felt better, and he 
less for rising. Why is this ? After six or eight hours 
sleep, and with the morning sun shining in at the bed 
room window — everything propitious for rising, why, 
oh ! why this worst of all feelings, and no refreshing 
sleep enjoyed ? This sensation is experienced by thous- 
ands. What is it ? It is death that has a hold of the 
individual. Nothing more certain. He is half dead 
already, almost asphyxiated by that poisonous substance 
carbonic acid gas. If a person experienced this sensa- 
tion from an overdose of laudanum, or from going down 
into an old well, how every one would hurry to have 
something done for his restoration ! But here is an 
instance of just as certain death, though the process may 
be somewhat slower, and yet it is none the less sure 



254 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

of producing the same terrible consequences, and yet 
no one takes notice of it. Yes, death is even hugged 
and invited by the unhappy victim. 

About one pint of air is inhaled at a breath. A 
person breathes about r8 times a minute during sleep, 
or two and a quarter hogsheads in an hour, or i8 hogs- 
heads in a night. Every particle of air is used up in a 
room where there is no ventilation, in eight hours, and 
the air becomes so vitiated, that it is no longer fit for 
breathing in an hour or two. Hence the great import- 
ance of ventilation if refreshing sleep is to be enjoyed. 

The bed chamber should be on the second or third 
floor, and its windows should face the east or south, so 
as to have the drying and purifying influences of sun- 
light. There should be no curtains to the bed or win- 
dows, nor garments hanging on the wall. 

Cautions. — Have no heavy covering on the body, 
but cover the feet and lower extremities abundantly, so 
that the blood is withdrawn from the head and dreaming 
prevented. 

Never go to bed with cold or damp feet. Retire at 
a regular hour, not later than ten, and rise as soon as 
you wake in the morning. 

Franklin's remedy for restlessness at night was to 
get up, give the bedding an airing, and with the hand 
to give the whole body a good rubbing. 

Restless nights, as to persons in apparent good 
health, arise chiefly from, first an overloaded stomach ; 
second, from worldly care ; third, from want of muscu- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 255 

lar activities proportioned to the needs of the system. 
It is better to eat something before retiring, than to go 
to bed on an empty stomach. But care must be taken 
not to overload the stomach, if sound rest is expected. 

Worldly care. For those who cannot sleep from 
the unsatisfactory condition of their affairs ; who feel as 
if they were going behindhand ; or that they are about 
to encounter great losses, whether from their own remiss- 
ness, the perfidy of friends, or unavoidable circum- 
stances, we have a deep and sincere sympathy. To 
such we say, live hopefully for better days ahead, and 
meanwhile strive diligently, persistently, and with a 
brave heart to that end. 

But the more common cause of restless nights is, 
that exercise has not been taken to make the body tired 
enough to demand sleep. Few will fail to sleep soundly 
if the whole of daylight, or as much thereof as will pro- 
duce moderate fatigue, is spent in steady work in the 
open air, or on horseback, or on foot. Many spoil all 
their .sleep by attempting to force more on nature than 
she requires. Few persons will fail to sleep soundly, 
while they do sleep, if they avoid sleeping in the day- 
time, will go to bed at a regular hour, and heroically 
resolve to get up the moment they wake, whether it is 
at two, four, or six o'clock in the morning. 

Methods of Inducing: Sleep.— Nearly all the 
methods for inducing sleep are such as tend to withdraw 
blood from the brain to the skin and abdominal organs. 
A hot foot-bath, for instance, is one of the best of the 



256 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

simple sedatives ; a ligbt meal on retiring, or a cracker 
eaten in the early morning hours when sleep has fled 
and is wooed in vain, often transfers the seat of activity 
from the brain to the stomach and brings the former 
organ into a state conducive to rest. In most cases, 
however, late suppers should be avoided. During sleep 
all the functions of the body are in abeyance, the respi- 
ration is slower, the heart beats less rapidly, and diges- 
tion is delayed ; food therefore, taken just previous to 
sleep is apt to be undigested, fermentation results, nox- 
ious principles are absorbed, and an unfreshing, dis- 
turbed sleep during the night and dulled faculties in 
the morning are the result. Light sleepers will gener- 
ally find a position on the right side the most comfort- 
able and less provocative of unpleasant dreams. 

Do Not Use Drugs.— Nervous irritability from 
overwork of the brain is common cause for sleepless- 
ness. The student who robs himself of sleep to gain 
the prize of scholarship ; the professional man whose 
ambition spurs him on to the ignore the rest v/hich 
nature demands ; the business man who, in the pursuit 
of wealth, pays little heed to the plain indications of 
nature, toss restlessly from side to side, and weary hours 
drag by before they can cure the approach of tired na- 
ture's 'sweet restorer. In these cases there is the great- 
est temptation to resort to drugs to compel the rest so 
vainly sought, to bury care in the oblivion induced by 
the use of powerful narcotics, to seek solace in the sleep 
which opium or chloral may bring. Once allured, again 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 257 

and again is the hazardous expedient resorted to, until 
soon the unfortunate subject is under the sway of a 
despot whose rule is ruin. Such men should heed at 
once the ominous warning so plainly given, and instead 
of resorting to drugs, the effects of which are but tem- 
porary^ and baneful, should realize that a radical change 
of life is imperiously demanded as the only alternative 
to a nervous bankruptcy, from which no future care, all 
too late, can extricate them. A long vacation in the 
country, or by the sea is needed. A protracted sea voy- 
age in a sailing vessel is the most efficient means of 
securing absolute rest in such cases, and in the time so 
spent, which is apt in advance to be looked upon as 
wasted, a new life springs up. 

Do not sleep on the back, it produces night mare. 
No one who sleeps on the side ever gets nightmare. 
Lying on the right side favors the passage of the food 
from the stomach. If you wake up with a hacking 
cough, immediately cover your entire body except the 
head. 

Always induce an action of the bowels in the morn- 
ing, so that you are not disturbed in your sleep thereby. 
If you find that the ordinary means of securing a good, 
healthful sleep will not avail, consult an educated, hon- 
orable physician. 



258 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 



Our Beds. 

Must be Renovated Often. — We spend nearly 
one third of our life in the bed. This being the case it 
is vitally important that we have the right kind of beds, 
and also that they be kept properly. To say nothing of 
the old-fashioned spare bed, which has probably killed 
as many persons, as typhoid fever or small pox, the 
modern bed often, also, has its dangers. 

Of the seven pounds which a man eats and drinks 
in a day, it is thought that not less than two pounds 
leave his body through the skin. And of these two 
pounds a considerable percentage escapes during the 
night while he is in bed. The larger part of this is 
water, but in addition there is much effete and pois- 
onous matter. This being in great part gaseous 
in form, permeates every part of the bed. Thus, all 
par^ts of the bed^ mattress^ blankets^ as well as sheets^ 
soon become foul and need purification. The mattress 
needs this renovation quite as much as the sheets. 
To allow the sheets to be used without washing or 
changing, three or six months, would be regarded as 
bad house-keeping; but if a thin sheet can absorb enough 
of the poisonous excretions of the body to make it 
unfit for use in a few days, a thick mattress, which can 
absorb and retain a thousand times as much of these 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 259 

poisonous excretions, needs to be purified as often cer- 
tainly as once in three months. 

A sheet can be washed. A mattress cannot be ren- 
ovated in this way. Indeed, there is no other way of 
cleansing a mattress but by steaming it, or picking it to 
pieces, and thus, in fragments, exposing it to the di- 
rect rays of the sun. As these processes are scarcely 
practicable with any of the ordinary mattresses, the 
good old-fashioned straw bed, which can every three 
months, be changed for fresh straw and the tick washed, 
is the sweetest and healthiest of beds. 

If, in the winter season, the porousness oi the straw 
bed makes it a little uncomfortable, spread over it a 
comforter, or two woollen blankets, which should be 
washed as often as every two weeks. With this arrange- 
ment, if you wash all the bed covering as often as once 
in two or three weeks, you will have a pleasant, healthy 
bed. 

Now if you leave the bed to air with open windows 
during the day, and not make it up for the night before 
evening, you will have added greatly to the sweetness 
of your rest, and in consequence, to the tone of your 
health. 

Bed Covering. — In sleep we require an amount of 
covering that during the day would be burdensome, 
since in that state, there being no voluntary muscular 
action, and the functions of respiration and digestion 
being sluggish, there is less combustion of tissue and 
consequently less heat. To invite sleep the body should 



260 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

be equably warm. The brain during rest is supplied 
with less blood than in the hours of activity ; the effect 
of cold on the body and extremities is to contract the 
blood vessels of these parts, and to promote a fullness 
of those of the head, thus disturbing sleep and causing 
dreams. 

Special to Parents. — If you are a father or mother, 
never send your child to bed crying, or angered or un- 
der punishment, without giving him a kiss. Remember 
it may be the last night on earth, or a burning fever, 
diphtheria or croup may deprive him of reason, and you 
will never again be able to make amends for your cruelty 
and devilishness, or to ask his forgiveness. 

Be persuaded to make a habitual and systematic 
arrangement by which each child shall retire to its little 
bed with a feeling of affectionate lovingness toward you; 
that no harsh word, or look, or inconsiderate act ot 
yours shall ruffle its little heart, and cause it to turn its 
face to the wall against you. Your indifferent, stereo- 
typed, matter-of-course kiss is a cruel hypocrisy. The 
little creatures perceive it by instinct, and they lie down 
with an undefined unsatisfaction. If you do not feel a 
kiss, do not commit the atrocity of a mere form, but go 
and pray God to give you a new heart. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 261 



Sudden Deaths. 

' Sudden Deaths Very Common. — Of late years 
the number of sudden deaths has increased, at a fearful 
rate. This is particularly the case among men who 
occupy prominent positions. There is no doubt, that in 
most cases they are caused by the excitement, rush, 
strain and high pressure system of the age. We live too 
fast. We do everything in a hurry. We are overwork- 
ing ourselves. We live in constant excitement. We 
put off everything to the last moment, and then exert 
our powers beyond all measure to accomplish our work. 
We rush to the train, or run up stairs, or get excited, so 
that the blood rushes to the brain ; we take so little time 
to eat our meals, that we swallow our food only half 
masticated, or which is worse, force our food into our 
excited stomachs, or drink ice cold water in large 
draughts, or are guilty of numerous other indiscretions. 
We do this, not only once, for that would not be so dan- 
gerous, but we keep up the action of the heart under 
continued excitement, the heart flutters and beats per- 
ceptibly, we get almost out of breath, and pant and 
breathe heavily, and this a dozen times a day. We keep 
up this strain to the very hour of retiring, which is fre- 
quently much later than it should be, and then fall 
asleep under excitement, when our rest is disturbed by 
dreams. We are living under continual mental strain 



262 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

and anxiety, either of study, business or cares. These 
are the fruitful causes of sudden death, for which there 
is no remedy, but there are preventives. 

Valuable Preventatives. — Cultivate an equable 
temper. Nothing is so apt to produce sudden death as 
mental excitement. Cultivate a pleasant disposition. 

Be regular in your habits. Take your meals at 
regular hours, and do not hurry in going to the table, 
or while eating, or in leaving the table. Do all these 
things moderately, and take a rest, mental and physical, 
after the meal. So in sleeping. Keep good hours for 
retiring and take plenty of sleep. Do not go to bed 
under mental excitement. 

Work always by the day, and not by the job. 
When you do mental work, never do it as if you were 
working by the job, or under a high pressure system. 
Alyays stop before you are fagged out. 

Never cross a bridge, before you come to it. 

Never run to meet a train, nor attempt to board it 
while it is in motion. Do not run up stairs. Do not 
hurry and rush unduly, so that you get out of breath, 
particularly not if you are past middle age. 

A sudden death, by the way, is not undesirable, 
when once the time of our departure has come. To be 
suddenly translated, when prepared for the event, as 
Enoch and Elijah were, and as all the saints shall be, at 
the glorious parousia of our blessed I^ord, is a consum- 
mation devoutly to be desired, but do not hasten that 
day unnecessarily. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 262 



Summer. 

Summer Vacation. — With some, July is the busy 
season, with others it is the slack month, and with oth- 
ers, again, it is vacation time. The farmer is in the 
midst of wheat, hay and oats harvest, — this is his busi- 
est season. The merchant and the manufacturer has a 
slack time, and the clerk, teacher and professional men, 
in general, have vacation. 

The time is at hand when many hard workers seek 
for a little rest and recreation, these hot summer days 
and nights. The clerk and the merchant need a change 
from the close confinement of the store, the mechanic 
needs a few days off from his shop; the teacher, freed 
from the schoolroom, must get out to the open air; even 
the farmer, though not confined to the house, ought to 
have rest for his weary limbs, after the hard work of his 
hay, wheat and oat harvest; his wife, yea, all wives 
should, by all means, have a ''let off" from the drudg- 
ery of household duties, the continued bending over the 
hot kitchen stove and the worriment of her work. 

Thousands are under the ground now, the names of 
whom you can recall, whose string of life snapped asun- 
der, just because there was such a constant tension, no 
relaxation in ten, twenty, thirty years. Kind, burden- 
some nature is long suffering, but the camel's back will 
break at last. 



264 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

Rest is Needed. — It is change that is needed by 
the mind as well as the body, recreation is re-creatio7i^ 
and there is nothing better to re-create body, mind and 
soul than an entire change, this is the new creation. No 
person will ever lose, in the long run, by taking recrea- 
ation; he will not lose in time, nor in money, nor in a 
dying hour, nor in the eternal future. 

A change, a change of scenery, entire rest from all 
anxieties and worriment, a dismissal of cares, laying 
aside and having a free and easy, *'go as you please " 
time, is what ever^^body needs. 

A few days of real, rollicking recreation, in July or 
August, will be of great service to every one. Take 
your few days off, tired, well nigh exhausted brother and 
sister. 

Where shall it be had? Go away from home to do 
it. Your crops are housed, your books balanced, your 
school term has expired, and, now, off for the woods, 
the mountain, the shore, or some secluded spot, where 
no fiends torment or thirst for gold, where no collector 
of bills can find you, where there is no cooking and 
washing of dishes, where, entirely freed from all work 
and care, you have nothing to do but sleep, fish, play 
and do as you please. Go, reader, where you can dress 
in your commonest clothing; and you, poor overworked 
wife, don't take that everlasting ''sewing" along with 
you; resolve not to take a single stitch during your en- 
tire absence; let your only " sewing apparatus " consist 
of a ball of yarn, a skein of silk and two needles; leave 



CO HON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 265 

your thimble at home; if you sew on all the buttons and 
keep the stockings darned, that will be quite enough. 

lycave Your Cares Behind. — The President of 
the United States has set us a good example, recently, 
by taking recreation in the mountains, and ' ' roughing 
it. ' ' This is the kind of recreation we all need. Away 
from dust and dirt, and smoke, and excitement. Leave 
all your cares behind you. Sleep till ten o'clock, if you 
wish, dress but once in 24 hours, scale fences, climb 
trees, catch fish, gather berries and wild flowers, build 
mud dams, wander over brook, and branch, and hillside, 
and mountain top, by the public road or the seaside, 
row a boat, ride a horse, skip about in the clear moon- 
light of summer, anything whatever that gives you a 
change. If you are in town go to the country, if in the 
country go to the seashore or the mountains, or huckle- 
berrying, or fishing, swimming or botanizing; or with 
hammer and microscope study the rocks and read the 
histories of the localities from ages before the flood, as 
you can do; climb mountains, explore caves; in short, 
do anything and everything which will entertain, in- 
struct or gratify yourself or others, from breakfast until 
noon, and from dinner to sundov^n; so that when you 
come home to dinner, you will be as hungry as a bear, 
and bacon, cabbage and corn-bread will taste sweet to 
you; After dinner go again, that when you come home 
at sundown you will sigh for the bed, hardly taking 
time to have a dry cracker and a cup of tea, all that you 
ought to have, and ali that night you will sleep like a 



9M COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 

baby, and next morning you will feel hungry enough to 
eat your wife and children, and so happy and good- 
natured that life will have new charms for you. 

Always get plenty of sleep. Insufficient sleep is 
followed by a day of yawning, discomfort and drowsi- 
ness. The first step toward insanity is insufficiency of 
sleep. Better go without food for ten days than without 
sleep for two. Nature can not be cheated. No rest 
will recuperate unless there is plenty of healthful sleep. 

There is divine authority for such rest. The Cre- 
ator Himself took a vacation at the close of His six days' 
work. Our Lord and Savior took His vacation. He 
frequently withdrew from the busy scenes of life to the 
woods and desert places, where the multitude could not 
find Him, where, in retirement and seclusion, he could 
rest and expatiate. 

There is rest in heaven, it is true, but in order to 
perform the work of life, while we sojourn in the flesh, 
we must have our period of rest in this world. The 
gospel of Christ teaches us the necessity of rest and rec- 
reation, and health, both by the examples which it fur- 
nishes and the precepts it inculcates. Obey this Gospel, 
and serve God by your mid-summer vacation, so as to 
strengthen body and mind for more efficient service 
hereafter. 

Change is rest, re-invigoration, recreation; re-cre- 
ation. 

Summer Rules. — Keep as cool as possible. Be 
temperate. Avoid alcoholic drinks. Beware of a costive 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 267 

condition of body. Bathe often. Do not work harder 
than necessity compels. Should dizziness or nausea be 
felt stop work at once, douse the head and shoulders with 
water — ice water, if possible — and lie down in a cool 
place. In case of sunstroke rub the body with ice and 
apply ice to the wrists, temples and back of the ears. If 
the skin be cold instead of hot, it is heat exhaustion and 
not sunstroke, and the treatment should be with hot 
baths and alcoholic stimulants. 

These things are not hard to understand or remember, 
while their observance may save life. It is necessary to 
remember them, because this is a time when it is in order 
to take extraordinary precautions to save not only the 
health but the life. 

Select Food with Care. — Care must be had of what 
we eat and drink, if we would preserve health at this 
season. Coffee, tea, cold water, lemonade, and other 
acids and ice cream are healthful. Acids promote the 
secretion of bile, prevent fevers, and keep the system 
free ; hence the advantages of fruits, berries, cold slaw, 
salads, pickles, sour milk, etc. Sweet milk, ale, beer, 
alcohol, etc., create bile, constipate, induce head-ache, 
cold feet, neuralgia and want of appetite. Eat three 
times a day and nothing between meals, and do not in- 
dulge in luxuries. 

If God had intended that we should guzzle down 
glass after glass of ice water, he would have created the 
water with the ice in. But he did not, and, hence, com- 
mon sense admonishes us to drink ice cold water with 
great moderation on hot days, if we drink it at all. 



i 
268 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 

If God had intended that we should drink alcohol, 
he would have prepared it for us in the drinking water. 
He did not thus prepare it, and, hence, common sense 
teaches us to let it alone. 

Animal Sense. — Cows, pigs, dogs and other antmais 
can not be said to have common sense, but they have 
cow, horse, pig and dog sense. They do not force food 
or drink into their stomachs, when they have no appetite 
for it. Why should a human being, endowed, if not with 
common sense, at least with more than cow, horse or pig 
sense, force himself to eat when not hungry, when nature 
does not deserve food or drink ? 

Some persons imagine that living on pure country 
milk, when they get into the country in summer, will do 
wonders for them. Common sense teaches that milk is 
the food for babies and kittens. Grown persons who use 
a great deal of milk become bilious and constipated, un- 
less they work steadily and hard in the open air. 

Natural sense teaches animals to go into water fre- 
quently in summer ; common sense should teach us to 
keep the body clean by frequent bathing in hot weather. 

Experience, which is a good common sense teacher, 
teaches the Esquimau to eat whale blubber in the rigorous 
climate of the far north ; but it also teaches the China- 
man to eat jice and a vegetable diet in a hot climate. 
No person, with common sense, will swallow blubber, 
pork, bacon and fat in hot weather. 

IvCSSons from Prof. I^en^. — Prof. Oscar I^enz, 
who has crossed Africa almost entirely on foot, ascribes 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 269 

his escape from all climatic dangers to his strict attention 
to hygienic rules. He abstained from raw fruit and never 
drank unboiled water. His usual food was rice, chicken 
and tea. He never touched wine or spirits. He care- 
fully avoided bathing in rivers and pools of clear, 
cold water, so tempting to travelers, but so apt to give 
fatal chills. He dressed in flannels and avoided exposure 
to the night air. He thus passad unscathed through 
districts reeking with marsh fevers, ague and small-pox. 
Here is a lesson, taught in few words, which, if 
observed, is worth not only money, but comfort, health 
and life. What Prof. I,enz could do, by the help of the 
Lord, and the Lord cares for those who take care of them- 
selves, in Africa's dire and deadly climate, we should do, 
under the African sun of the temperate zone. We be- 
lieve in doing just what he did, with the exception of the 
raw fruit, which, it may be necessary to avoid in Africa, 
but which we should certainly recommend everywhere 
in this climate, to eat in moderation, when fully ripe. 
. There is not a more healthful diet, sanctioned by ex- 
perience and sanitary rules, than strawberries, raspberries, 
blackberries, dewberries, huckleberries, cherries, apricots, 
peaches, apples, bananas, grapes, and even pears and 
plums, when eaten cautiously. 



270 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



Summer Hints. 

Seasonable Rules.— Seven hours of sleep are 
enough in summer for most persons. A nap in the day- 
time causes the night sleep to be disturbed and im- 
perfect. 

The less a person drinks in hot weather the better. 
The more we drink the more we want to drink. The 
longer yon can defer drinking cold water, on the morn- 
ing of a hot day, the better you will feel at night. 

If you find that you have eaten too much, do not 
take anything to ' ' settle the stomach, ' ' and, thus, add a 
greater load, but take moderate exercise till the skin 
becomes moist, and do not stop till entirely relieved. 

Eat regularly the fruits which nature provides for 
warm weather, such as strawberries, currants, cherries, 
gooseberries, peaches, water melons, etc. These when 
in season are always healthful, if eaten moderately. 

Nature craves something acid in warm weather. 
The best, most cooling beverage is weak lemonade, not 
too sweet. Give the children some every day when 
thirsty. It should not be too sweet, or it will form an 
acid in the stomach. 

Cucumbers, cold slaw, salad, tomatoes sliced in 
vinegar are healthful, if eaten with moderation. We all 
eat them for the sake of the vinegar, and it makes but 
little difference which we use. The superstitious notion 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 271 

that cucumbers are cholera fodder is *' moonshine.'* 
The vinegar in the cucumber is what the stomach 
craves in warm weather. 

Babies should be bathed every day, but for grown 
persons to undergo such an operation is hurtful. It is 
necessary, however, for the promotion of health, that at 
least once a week there should be a thorough washing of 
the whole body, with soap and soft water, at a tempera- 
ture of about 80° Fahrenheit. The entire time should 
not exceed 20 minutes. In warm dusty weather the 
hands, face, neck, throat, arms and armpits should be 
washed several times a day. 

Mortality Among Children.— In the short period 
of one week no less than 952 children died in the cities 
of New York and Chicago alone. The mortality in 
New York reached 683 children under 5 years, an in- 
crease of 141 over the preceding week. The deaths in 
Chicago numbered 269, of whom 199 were less than one 
year old. These figures should remind parents that 
they have reached that season of the year when infant 
mortality is greatest, and that for six weeks or two 
months the greatest care should be observed in the treat- 
ment of the young. The lives of thousands of infants 
are sacrificed annually through ignorance and inatten- 
tion. Overfeeding is a prolific source of summer com- 
plaints. Even foods that are wholesome and properly 
prepared may be given in such quantities as to cause 
sickness. When the stomach is gorged, fermentation, 
instead of assimilation, is the result ; and when nature 



272 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

rebels against cramming very slight neglect on the part 
of parents or nurses will be followed by a fatal fever or 
diarrhoea. The use of unripe or unsound fruits and 
vegetables is another source of danger which cannot be 
too. carefully guarded against. Unceasing vigilance and 
the exercise of good common sense in the treatment of 
children are necessary to get them safely through the 
summer months. They should be given light and nour- 
ishing diet only, and in sparing quantities. They 
should have plenty of fresh air and their bodies should 
be bathed daily. Strict attention should be paid to the 
matter of clothing, so that colds may be avoided as a 
result of changes of temperature, especially in the even- 
ing. When alarming symptoms are developed no time 
should be lost in summoning a physician. It is always 
dangerous to trifle with the deadly cholera infantum. 

In intensely hot weather, acids are formed very 
quickl}^ in the stomach. Fruits, not fully ripe, sweet 
things, ice cream for example, and similar substances, 
when eaten a little in excess, sour the stomach and pro- 
duce nausea and sickness. Summer complaint, among 
children, and looseness of bowels and dysenten^, dyspep- 
sia, etc., in older people, are some of the consequences. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 273 



Tobacco. 

Cigarette Smoking. — The cigarette evil is grow- 
ing and it is ruining many of the boys of our country, 
both physically, mentally and morally. It is necessary, 
not only that parents, and those who have charge of 
boys (even some girls smoke them) take a determined 
stand in the matter, and invoke the strong arm of the 
law wherever it can be done. 

The evidence from 200 doctors before the Michigan 
Legislature is worth heeding. They each cited cases of 
boys being dwarfed, made insane, killed or rendered in- 
capable of speech. The professors of Michigan Univer- 
sity also testified at length of the efiect on the students 
who were made stupid by cigarettes. The fact is well 
known that cigarette smoking is far more injurious to 
the health of the smoker than the smoking of cigars. 
In a cigarette there are five poisons ; in a good cigar one. 
In a cigarette there is oil in the paper, the oil of saltpetre 
to preserve the tobacco, and opium to make it mild, and 
a couple of poisonous oils are used in the flavoring. 

They are Vile. — One of the most effective argu- 
ments is the proof that most of the cheap cigarettes are 
made from the filthy butts of castaway cigars, gathered 
from the gutters by Italian scavengers. Some of these 
people make as high as-$io a week at this trade, selling 



274 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

these stumps to New York manufacturers of cheap cigar- 
ettes. 

One this subject Joe Howard says : If young people 
could only see what cigarettes are made of, one would 
think they would be the last things a self-respecting 
youth would put in his mouth. As lor the women who 
smoke cigarettes, I have nothing to say. There may be 
men who enjoy the fragrance of a cigarette-drenched 
woman. I am not one of them. The odor that comes 
from the paper, the sickening oflfense that arises like a 
' cloud of miasmatic vapor, permeating their breath and 
making noisome every pore in their body, may have at- 
tractions for the purlieuistic denizens of the gutter, but 
I always feel about them as the Scripture writer did about 
the dog who returned to his vomit. A great deal of at- 
tention is being directed to this subject of late, and the 
Trenton State Gazette says : ** A short time ago a gen- 
tleman of this city who has a natural antipathy to cigar- 
ette smokers began clipping from the newspapers, as he 
read them, notices of casualties caused by cigarette smok- 
ing, and now presents them as a stronger argument 
against the habit than any other line of reasoning. ' * A 
few of these fatalities are here produced : 

Ivaurence Murphy, aged 23, was found dead in his 
bed at his home, Bridgeport, Conn. He was a victim of 
the cigarette habit, and to this alone is his death at- 
tributed. 

Thomas Calt, a 12 year old, boy, violently insane as 
the result of cigarette smoking, was taken to the New 
Haven, Conn., almshouse. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 275 

A 15 year-old son of John Huflf dropped dead at 
Sommerville from heart disease, caused by the excessive 
smoking of cigarettes. 

The death of Fowler Simpson, at Newton, recently, 
was due to cigarette smoking. 

Frederick Long, aged 14, died at Lockport, N. Y., 
from excessive cigarette smoking. 

Carleton Harris, of New York, a nephew of Jay 
Gould, died suddenly at Round Island, N. Y., where he 
has been spending his vacation. The cause of his death 
is supposed to be cigarette smoking. 

Fifteen other similar cases are given by this gen- 
tleman, all having occured within a few days. 

They Dwarf Manhood. — To see boys eight and ten 
years old, with cigarettes in their mouth, puffing away, 
is, to put it mild, a most disgusting sight. Yet there are 
plenty of them. We were obliged, quite recently, as a 
school controller, to suspend, several boys from a primary 
school whose offence was smoking on the school grounds. 
Another, in one of our high grade schools, could not 
continue his course of studies, because he smoked ex- 
cessively. The Boston Journal of Health says very truth- 
fully: 

*'It is a fact which cannot be disputed, that boys 
who are persistent cigarette smokers do not reach per- 
fect maturity. Their growth, both physically and 
intellectually, is retarded. Their nervous system is but 
imperfectly developed ; digestion, sight and other im- 
portant functions are seriously impaired. Irritability of 



276 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

the heart is one common consequence of the use of tobacco 
in any form in early life. I^et all boys who use tobacco 
understand this ; they can never hope to become men. 
They will grow old, and prematurely old, but true, manly 
development and vigor they can never attain ; and for 
their chances of success as students and scholars, even 
the mild use of tobacco impairs them, and the persistent 
use wholly destroys them. Never before the age of 2 1 
is reached should tobacco be indulged in, and its use 
might more wisely be delayed until the body has become 
fully and completely developed. Parents should see to 
it, and, if necessary, laws should be enacted, that this 
rule be strictly enforced. There is an awful responsibi- 
lity here which all should feel, and do their utmost to 
stay the degeneration of our youth, which is threatened 
by this, one of the greatest curses known to us — the 
tobacco habit in boys. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 277 



Typhoid Fever. 

Causes. — Cases of typhoid fever are most common 
in autumn and early winter. It attacks the young and 
old the rich and poor alike. The innocent suffer not 
only with the guilty but frequently y^r the guilty. Ty- 
phoid fever is no doubt traceable to causes, prominent 
among which are impurities in the water and the air, 
caused by refuse matter being thrown about indiscrimi- 
nately, contaminations of water caused by pig stables, 
water closets, imperfect sewerage, emanations rising into 
the air from decomposed vegetable and animal 
matter, etc. In a town, or even in the country, persons 
may be guilty of causing typhoid fever by their indis- 
cretions, while they themselves escape an attack from 
the disease, and innocent persons, whose system may 
be in condition to be affected, contract the disease and 
pay the penalty with the sacrifice of their lives, which 
others, who were guilty of producing, escape. 

Families, schools and communities should exercise 
the greatest most conscientious care, when there is 
evidently a typhoid condition of the air, to prevent the 
occurrence of this disease, not only for their own sakes 
but for others, because they may by indifference, cause 
the sacrifice of innocent, useful lives. 

Ventilate your rooms, keep a good fire in your 



278 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

buildings. See that the draining, surface and under- 
ground is perfect. Allow no decaying rubbish to lie 
about the buildings or streets. Use disinfectants, drink 
pure water, obtained from wells away from buildings, 
or clean cistern water. 

Description. — The word typhoid means like typhus, 
and typhus means blind, stupid. Certain symptoms 
precede the attack in a part of the cases, such as a sense 
of weariness and general uneasiness, headache, especially 
in the morning, dullness of intellect, flushes of heat or 
chilliness, furred tongue, pulse accelerated, and a tend- 
ency to diarrhoea. The above symptons may occur for 
a few days, and occasionally for more than a week, when 
the disease is ushered in by a chill followed by fever. 
The pulse ranging from 90 to 120 per minute; but 
usually is less than a hundred. There is a dull, heavy, 
expression, pain in the head, back, and limbs, bleeding 
from the nose, restlessness with a want of sleep, and 
diarrhoea with yellow watery discharges, thirst and loss 
of appetite. The urine is highly colored and diminished 
in quantity. In severe cases the pulse rises above 120, 
is feeble and irregular, the breath offensive, the breath- 
ing hurried, the tongue dry and brown, or red and 
glazed ; the lips cracked and parched ; great depression 
and usually the abdomen is tender. These symptons be- 
come aggravated each day. In eight or ten days rose 
colored dots appear in most cases on the abdomen, and 
remain for two or three days, when they disappear and 
are usually replaced by a fresh crop. The second week 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 279 

the following symptoms may occur : sleepiness followed 
by slight delirium, which frequently becomes violent; 
ringing of the ears of deafness, hiccough, pains in the 
muscles, and great debility, etc. , etc. The mildest cases 
cannot be looked upon as being free from danger, nor on 
the other hand are the worst cases to be considered in- 
evitably fatal. iVmong the most unfavorable symptoms 
are deep sleep, stentorious breathing, rigidity of the limbs, 
profuse diarrhoea, hemorrhage from the bowels, great 
prostration. 

Well Water a Great Cause. — During the heated 
summer term water is drunk very freely, by almost 
everybody. Well water, of course, comes in for its share, 
and this is frequently so impure, that the result is typhoid 
fever. Fortunately the wet seasons of the past years 
have so diluted the poison of polluted wells, that there 
has been less of this disease than the usual average. But 
there always is danger, and particularly in summer, when 
much water is used, and the wells run low. Prof. Wilbur, 
of Rutger's College, says: 

' ' The average house owner certainly believes that 
the water which he pumps clear and cool from his well 
is pure and wholesome. He does not stop to think of 
the impurities with which it may have come in contact 
during its flow from the surface to the bottom ofhisv/ell. 
This well may be sunk in the immediate vicinity of an 
overflowing cess-pool or out-house ; the natural drainage 
of his own or his neighbor's barn-yard or pig-sty may be 
flowing over the soil through which is filtering the water 



280 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

that is to fill the underground cistern ; or its bottom may- 
be in a porous stratum of soil or gravel that receives, at 
a point higher than the bottom, the drainage from some 
graveyard or other source of decaying organic matter ; 
some neighboring tree may have thrust its rootlets 
through the wall of the well and there they remain to 
decay; or the top may not be tightly covered and strong, 
toads and other vermin may tumble in to aid in the pol- 
lution of the supply; but our well owner, not seeing, 
smelling or tasting the results of these additions to the 
underground reservoir, is not conscious of their existence. 
A filth saturated condition of the soil exists in every old 
and thickly settled community. Near every stable, ev- 
ery out-house or cess-pool, with their porous walled (if 
walled at all) vaults, every kitchen drain and sewer, is 
furnishing its quota of organic impurities, all of which 
supply matter for decomposition. The products of this 
decomposition are carried, as we have seen, directly to 
the wells, and they thus become suitable breeding places 
for bacterial life — powder magazines, only needing the 
spark of a typhoid or other deadly germ to furnish the 
explosion of a scourge of disease. ' ' 

Matter in Waters. — Nearly all natural waters 
hold in solution or suspension a larger or smaller pro- 
portion of organized matter, which determines to a cer- 
tain extent, their impurity and unfitness for domestic 
purposes. We shall divide the organic matter present 
in water into the living and dead — both having their 
origin in the animal or vegetable kingdoms. The dead 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 281 

animal matter, among the natural causes of contamina- 
tion, consists of the bodies of fish, insects, infusoria, etc. , 
as also the soluble nitrogenized compounds dissolved out 
of these by the water. The dead vegetable substances 
are the remains of water plants, leaves of trees, etc., 
which, particularly in autumn, are found in fever water 
in considerable quantities. As the laws of vitality have 
no longer any control over those substances, they become 
decomposed and resolved into their component elements, 
which combine, according to the laws of chemical in- 
firmities, and yield products complex in their chemical 
constitution, and of a more or less dangerous or unwhole- 
some nature. 

The living organisms of animal origin found in 
water are fish, infusoria, insects, etc. ; of vegetable ori- 
gin, water plants, and a variety of singularly organized 
atoms, invisible to the naked eye, known by the popu- 
lar name of microbes, which are certain colorless algse 
belonging to the family bacteriacae. Inasmuch as the 
living animal and vegetable productions are dependent 
upon the the dead organic matter of the water for their 
sustenance, it follows that wherever living beings are 
found in water there must exist the requisite materials 
for their nourishment. Pure distilled water can neither 
sustain animal or vegetable life. The existence of liv- 
ing organisms in water in larger or smaller quantities, is 
an indication of the greater or less amount of soluble or- 
ganic matter in the water in the water, is also of its 
purity or impurity. When they exist in small quanti- 



282 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

ties it follows, other things being equal, that the water 
be pure. These living beings, animal and vegetable, 
act as depuratory, and we learn by their presence that 
there must exist the requisite amount and proper sort of 
food for their maintenance, hence their existence in 
water denotes a certain amount of soluble organic prin- 
ciples. We cannot but think, therefore, that the value 
of the information derived from microscopical observa- 
tion of the organic impurities in v/ater has not been here- 
tofore sufficiently insisted on. 

City Sewerage. — It is now agreed that the sewer- 
age matters of towns, including excretal and household 
wastes, however largely diluted, cannot with safety be 
allowed to flow into any source of water supply used for 
dietetic or culinary purposes. In order to carry off such 
wastes a system of closed vessels or impermeable pipes 
should be provided, distinct from the storm water drains, 
to discharge the matter at a depot or outfall independent 
of any river or stream, except for a practically pure efflu- 
ent. The discharge, directly or indirectly, of crude sew- 
age into any source of water supply, however remote, is 
a constant concomitant of epidemic diseases, while a pro- 
portionate exemption from such maladies will invariably 
follow the removal of the pollution. A pure and abund- 
ant supply of water is cheap at any price, and "millions'' 
to secure it, would be better than "millions for defence." 
I scarcely need add that all manufactories and trades 
should be required to clean their own waste; not, of 
course, to convert it 'into a chemically pure water, but 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 283 

simply to deprive it of its power to become a nuisance to 
others when discharged into a public water-way. 

Typhoid is More Dangerous than Yellow Fever. 

— This may be a somewhat startling assertion to many 
of our readers, but it is nevertheless true. The statistics 
prove that the mortality rate of typhoid is greater. 
About one of eight cases of yellow fever have proved 
fatal, even where it was epidemic, of typhoid the rate is 
one in five or six. Yellow fever is confined to a limited 
district, and a certain season, while typhoid has all sea- 
sons for its own, and the boundless continent is its do- 
main. Where yellow fever has slain its tens, typhoid 
has claimed its victims by hundreds. 

Typhoid fever is communicable, not like yellow 
fever and small pox by contagion. The same causes 
produce it under the same circumstances. Half a dozen 
members of the same family, or that many persons in 
the same neighborhood, make take it but not from con- 
tagion. The same causes that produce it in one case 
may be at work and will produce other cases. 

Examples. — In 1859, we had typhoid fever in our 
school, at Quakertown, Pa., no less than half a dozen 
down at one time. It was one of our first experiences 
in connection with the disease. We have studied it ever 
since. It originated then in the impurities in the water 
used from an old well. At Kutztown, in 1875, we had 
it in school, resulting in several deaths. It was caused 
by the bad water. At Mansfield, Pa., Normal School, 
where it prevailed so terribly, in 1874, resulting in a 



284 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

score of deaths, and over sixty cases of sickness, at tlie 
same time, we v\^arned the authorities, a year previous, 
that their water closets and imperfect sewerage, under 
the same roof, where the students ate and slept, would 
cause a serious outbreak of typhoid, and we were, un- 
fortunately, right, though our warnings were not heeded . 
at the time. Our observations have, in hundreds of 
cases, similar to these, borne us out in the conviction 
that typhoid fever always has its cause, that, while it 
may be neither contagious nor infectious, the same 
causes that produce it in one case, in the same family, 
school, town or community, will produce it in another. 

' A writer in the Annals o^ Hygiene says, very cor- 
rectly : 

Typhoid Fever is a ** Filth Disease" — not some- 
times, not generally, but always. And perhaps the next 
in importance is that while the production of the disease 
probably requires that the morbific agent shall be 
brought into contact with the alimentary mucous mem- 
brane, as in food of drink, it is possible for the salivary 
fluids in the mouth and throat to absorb the poison from 
the atmosphere and thus become the medium of its 
transmission to the .stomach. There is also a third les- 
son of no less value to us, viz : That various articles of 
food, and especially milk, water and other fluid foods, 
possess the same property of absorbing the fever poisons 
from the atmosphere and thus becoming the vehicles of 
its introduction into the system. 

My own observations are fully in keeping with the 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 285 

view that the absorption of the poisonous emanations by 
the salivary secretions, and by food stored in pantries 
and kitchens, but especially the latter, furnishes the ex- 
planation of nearly all the so-called ''sporadic" cases of 
true typhoid fever. In a large proportion of cases it will 
be discovered on examination that odorous emanations 
from kitchen drains, but more frequently from privy 
vaults, are easily perceptible to the senses in the rooms 
where food is stored and when it is prepared for the 
table. In most of the observations I have made on the 
subject, it has appeared to be the privy vault rather than 
the drain that has been responsible for the evil. 

Rain Water Best. — Avoid using suspicious water. 
Pure cistern water is always the best. 

Many springs also furnish impure water, especially 
such as have their sources in localities where refuse mat- 
ter is deposited, old grave yards, etc. 

Rain water, fresh from the clouds, is always the 
best. It has been distilled in nature's own retort, and is, 
therefore, the purest. Have a good, tight, clean cistern, 
and use its water for drinking and cooking purposes. 
Where this kind of water can not be had drink no 
water. Use coffee, tea, milk for drinking purposes. 

How to Avoid Typhoid Fever.— "It may be re- 
marked, can nothing be done to prevent typhoid fever? 
And it must be answered that in our present condi- 
tion of knowledge as to the causes of that disease but 
little can be done .and that in a general way. Our farm- 
ers would not, if they could, do away with the exu- 



286 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

berantriclinessof the virgin soil, nor diminisli the almost 
tropical temperature of our summers, yet these are the 
prime factors in the production of typhoid fever. Any 
one wishing to avoid this fever should look to the 
following points : 

As to water, to see that it is as pure as possible If 
from a cistern, to see that it is well-built and frequently 
cleaned. If from a well, that it is walled up with brick 
or stone, laid in cement, and is so situated that it gets 
no surface or soil-water contamination ; that it has no 
wooden curb to rot and furnish common cause of the fe- 
ver, aqua malaria. 

The house should be well ventilated, not built over 
a marshy spot, or one with a clay subsoil. It should 
have a cellar, either naturally dry or made so by effi- 
cient drainage, and this cellar should never be used as a 
store-room for vegetables, and if this is unavoidable, 
that these should never be allowed to rot. 

No slop-water, nor indeed any kind of water, 
should be thrown upon the ground near the home. All 
garbage, if not consumed by pigs, should be frequently 
removed, or better still, especially in towns and villa- 
ges, burned up in the kitchen nre. 

If drains exist, and they are exceedingly necessary 
to any well-ordered household, they should receive 
constant care and attention, that they have no leaks nor 
obstructions, and that they are as frequently and as 
thoroughly flooded as the water supply of the place will 
admit. Though faeces do not here play the important 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 287 

part in the production of typhoid fever as it appears 
to do in England, yet on general hygienic principles no 
accumulation of it should be allowed to take place, but 
where privies, and still worse, cess pools exist, they 
should be kept from putrefaction by the abundant use of 
that good and cheap disinfectant, copperas. This is 
important at all seasons of the year, but is particularly 
necessary in spring, when the increase in temperature, 
as the weather grows warmer, is calculated to set free 
the poisonous gases on the premises. 

In case of sickness from typhoid fever in a family, 
isolation of the patient, as far as possible, is to be 
recommended, not from any fear of contagion, but to 
afford that quiet, and that abundant supply of fresh air 
so necessary in the treatment of all fevers. The stools 
should be disinfected and deodorized as soon as passed, 
not for fear of contagion, but upon the general principles 
of decency and increased comfort to all the household. ' * 

One tenth the attention given beforehand to the laws 
of health, which a single typhoid patient requires after 
the diseas,e has gained a foothold, will go far in prevent- 
ing it. 

We hope that every reader may consider himself a 
self-constituted health officer, and, both for his own 
good and that of his neighbor, do his utmost in dis- 
pelling all causes of disease. 

As to Remedies. — We have no remedies to pre- 
scribe. Always consult a reliable physician and follow 
his advice. But, remember, that an ounce of preven- 
tion is better, etc. 



288 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

There are reasons, a dozen of tliem, why typhoid 
fever does prevail to such an alarming extent, and there 
is no time for moralizing and philosophizing. Action, 
action, action. 

Typhoid fever is one of those diseases for which we 
are ourselves responsible. It is not a visitation of Prov- 
idence, as that term is usually understood. Yes, 
Providence does visit, and even the sins of fathers upon 
the children to the third and fourth generation, but 
through means, not as a direct visitation from heaven. 
Our own sins and neglect of duty do entail upon us 
visitations of Providence. We dare not hold Providence 
responsible for our sins. We dare not saddle upon 
Providence our own indiscretions and neglects. We 
have no more right to believe God will remove the 
causes of disease, than that he v/ill place the dishes and 
food on our tables, or remove the same, when we sit 
down to eat. We have our duties to perform. God 
employs means for accomplishing purposes. 

Use I/ittle Medicine. — There is no doubt that the 
less medicine there is used with good treatment, care 
and experienced nursing, the better. It is, indeed, a 
question, whether nine-tenths of all patients would not 
get along better if they did not take any medicine. 
Watchful care, cleanliness, proper dieting, air, rest, 
keeping intruders out of the sick room, especially 
cranks, and removing the causes of disease, as far as can 
be ascertained — these are powerful curative agents. 
Besides this, there is no doubt that the j)rayer of faith 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES, 289 

will save the sick. God has said, James V. 14, 15 : 
**Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of 
the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him 
with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of 
faith shall save the sick.'^'* This promise of God re- 
mains forever, yea and amen. He has promised to 
heal the sick in response to the prayer of faith. There 
is no doubt that God will do just what he has promised. 
We know he will. His word gives us the assurance, 
and it can not lie. Our own personal experience is that 
it will be done. We have seen it and known it to be 
done wherever and whenever faith was properly exer- 
cised. We can name cases where, in response to our 
own feeble prayer, the promise of God has been most 
clearly and signally verified. We are not fanatical on 
this subject, but we do know whereof we affirm. 



590 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 



Teeth. 

Value and Care of.— The first tooth appears in. 
^ix months, in the third year all are *'cut,'* between the 
seventh and twenty-first year all the permanent teeth 
have made their appearance ; the value of the latter 
depends on the care taken of the first set ; and as the 
looks, health and happiness are all materially modified 
by good teeth, intelligent and affectionate parents will 
look to the teeth of their children as early as the third 
year, when, instead of being allowed to eat meat, they 
should be mainly fed on fruits, vegetables and bread 
made of wheat, corn or rye, ground coarsely, using the 
entire product, bran and all, because in the bran, is 
found almost exclusively, the solid material which is to 
make the bone or body of the tooth and its covering, 
called the enamel. 

The child should be taught at five, to dampen the 
brush in water every morning, rub it over a cake of castile 
soap and then brush the teeth well, inside and out, front 
and rear ; until, with the aid only of the saliva, the 
mouth is full of soap-suds ; then rinse with tepid water, 
twirling the brush sideways over the back part of the 
tongue, so as to cleanse it fully of the soap and leave a 
good taste ; after each meal, the mouth should be well 
rinsed with tepid water, as also the last thing on retiring; 
the mouth maintains a temperature of ninety-eight deg- 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 291 

fees ; hence, if any food lodges about or between the 
teeth, it begins to rot very soon, giving out an acid which 
immediately begins to eat into the tooth, preparatory to 
an early decay ; if solid particles are observed to lodge 
between the teeth, the child should be taught to use a 
very thin quill to dislodge it ; but not without, for the 
more a quill is used the greater space between the teeth; 
which is a misfortune, as it necessitates the use of a tooth- 
pick for all after life, consuming a great deal of valuable 
time. It is a wicked blunder to advise that a silk thread 
should be sawed between the teeth after eating ; nature 
intended the teeth to grow so close together that nothing 
could get between them. It is a bad practice, except in 
very rare cases, to remove the stump of the first teeth ; 
let them be displaced by nature's own process. That 
dentist is an ignoramus, who advises a sound tooth to be 
drawn to '^give more room" fOr the others, thus prevent- 
ing that natural expansion of the jaw, which gives ''char- 
acter" to the face, and greater power of mastication, an 
essential element of an easy and healthful digestion of 
the food. A clean tooth does not decay. Acids, sour 
fruits, always injure the teeth instantly ; sweets never 
do ; without them, children would die, hence their in- 
satiable instincts for sugar. If a tooth powder was never 
used, the teeth would not be so white, but kept perfectly 
clean, would last for life. 

A towel folded several times and dipped in hot water, 
and quickly wrung and applied over the toothache or 
neuralgia, will generally afford prompt relief. 



292 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 



The Throat. 

It is a mistake to suppose that the throat must be 
muffled in cold weather. The fur mufflers are throat 
disease producers, so are scarfs and heavy neck-ties. 
Some people are in the habit of bundling up their 
throats with a feather bed, and these are the people who 
will die of bronchial consumption. Exercise causes 
perspiration of the throat, when it is kept too warm, 
and, afterwards cooling off, will produce a chill, follow- 
ing by a hacking cotigh, throat- ails and bronchitis. The 
back, especially between the shoulders, should be pro- 
tected. That is the region of the lungs, the most deli- 
cate of all organs. Always throw a shawl, mantle or 
overcoat over the shoulders, when leaving the room in 
cold weather. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 293 



The Spitting Habit. 

Disgusting and Destructive.— No decent person 
will deny that the prevalent habit of spitting here, there 
and everywhere is, to say the least, disgusting. Now, 
in the light of recent developments, it would appear 
that this habit is not only disgusting, but absolutely and 
definitely dangerous. Whether Koch's bacillus is the 
cause of consumption or not, there is one fact upon 
which we all agree, namely, that the sputa of a con- 
sumptive contains the seeds of the disease. That con- 
sumption is spread by the indiscriminate expectoration 
of consumptives is a now well ascertained fact, but 
probably, this fact has never been more conclusively 
demonstrated than by the following occurrence: In a 
certain business house in Paris twenty- two persons were 
employed. Among these was a consumptive who 
coughed and spit upon the floor for three years, and . 
until within three months of his death. This was in 
1878, and since that time fourteen out of the twenty-two 
men have died with pulmonary consumption. 

Spitting should not be allowed in the school room, 
nor at home. Spittoons should be banished from the 
home, and the inmates of the house, as well as visitors 
be taught to dispense with spitting. Man is not a spit- 
ting animal. ^ 



294 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES, 



Winter. 

Its Sickness and Cures. — This is a season of the 
year when diphtheria, scarlet fever, pneumonia, typhoid 
fever and kindred diseases are more than usually preva- 
lent in all sections of the country. A word of caution, 
therefore, and of advice may not come amiss. 

Home cures, sometimes eflfective, and while they 
have the recommendation of being harmless, should, 
nevertheless, as a rule be given a wide berth. It is true, 
these cures of our grandmothers sometimes seemed to do 
us more good than the doctor's medicines. The herbs 
strung on the garret rafters, sage, hoarhound, boneset, 
etc., have medicinal virtues, and they relieved us of our 
colds, sore throat and feverishness in childhood. But 
while this much can be said of the house cures, it must 
be admitted that by ' 'tinkering' ' with such apparently 
simple and harmless remedies, sometimes the disease 
gained a firm foothold on the system, which might have 
been forestalled by more active measures employed by a 
skillful physician, and serious consequences avoided. 

Do not Experiment. — Experimentation is always 
dangerous, when such important issues as health, life 
and death are at stake. One person may have employed 
a cure, some so-called specific, with success, while an- 
other, differently constituted, may try the same, not only 
without benefit but to his injury. The anecdote of the 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 295 

two assess serves as an illustration here. The one laden 
with salt, in crossing a stream found his burden greatly 
diminished ; the other laden with wool, reasoned, ' ' what 
is good for my companion, must also be good for me," 
plunged into the stream, and before he was half way 
over, his load became so heavy, that he sank beneath it, 
and was drowned. 

This is the folly committed by many persons. 
Some one has used a remedy for a certain complaint or 
disorder. It gave him relief. Another uses it, and is 
not only not relieved, but precious time is lost in this 
experimentation, the disease allowed to make inroads 
upon him, and the folly discovered when too late. 
There are no specifics, yes, we believe there is one, 
namely, that sulphur cures itch, but this is the ne plus 
ultra. Cures, specifics, patent medicines should never 
be employed, where persons are threatened with diph- 
theria, scarlet fever, pneumonia, typhoid, and the like. 
Here, whatever thou doest, do quickly, now or never, 
must be the motto. The loss of a single day may, in 
these diseases, decide the matter. Take time by the 
forelock. Send for a skillful, experienced physician. 
Do not wait till night, and then, at the midnight hour, 
rouse him out of his sleep. Make these diseases also a 
study yourself. In diphtheria, particularly, it is of the 
utmost importance, that every parent and school teacher 
should understand the beginnings of the disease, its 
earliest symptoms: Diphtheria has frequently fixed 
itself on the child, before it complains of pain in the 



296 COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 

throat. A certain languor or dullness creeps over the 
child, it has not its usual vivacity, seems indifferent and 
inactive on the play-ground. When these symptoms 
are observed, no time should be lost in examining the 
child and having it attended to. Damp houses and cel- 
lars, crowded rooms, illy ventilated school rooms and 
sleeping apartments are favorable to the development of 
this disease, as well as of scarlet and typhoid fevers, 
while damp feet, damp clothes, exposure to draughts, 
becoming chilly after being over-heated, running out 
from an over-heated room, into the cold raw air, with 
mouth open, is productive of pneumonia. 

Every parent and teacher who loves his children 
should be particularly watchful of their health at this 
season of the year. 

Rules. — Do not let children sit close to a hot stove, 
while there is a door open, or a draught of cold air strik- 
ing them. 

Do not let children sit one moment with wet stock- 
ings on, or with damp feet. 

Do not let children sit in the house Yn\h rubbers on 
their feet. Do not let children run out into the cold or 
wet, without protection to their feet and bodies. Do not 
let children bundle up their throats, so that they perspire 
when running out into the cold. 

Do not let children go to bed with cold or damp 
feet. 

Teach children to keep their mouths shut when out 
in the cold, especially when passing from a warm room 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 297 

into the cold air, or when asleep. Do not refuse children 
permission to leave the room when they ask to do so. 

Do not allow your children to take ofifany article of 
clothing when they are over heated, rather have them 
put on more. Never allow them to sit down in the cold 
or on the ground to cool off. 

See that their backs are well protected when they 
go out of doors, the protection of the chest is not so im- 
portant. 

Do not let them go into cold damp beds at night, 
w^ith the expectation that they will get warm after they 
fall asleep. Do not let them sleep under feather beds ; 
give them woolen blankets. Do not let them go out of 
the house in the morning, before they have had a good 
warm breakfast. A little fresh air, introduced into the 
sleeping apartments from the outside, by opening the 
windows, if there is no draught over the bed, and the 
cover is sufficiently warm, is infinitely better than to have 
no ventilation and to inhale the foul air in the night. 

These directions should be observed by older folks 
as well, in fact by everybody. Attention has often been 
called to them, but they require constant repetition. 



COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 



Many Modes of Suicide. 

Wearing thin shoes and cotton stockings on damp 
nights, and in cold, rainy weather. Wearing insuffi- 
cient clothing, and especially upon the limbs and ex- 
tremities. 

lycading a life of enfeebling, stupid laziness and 
keeping the mind in an unnatural state of excitement 
by reading trashy novels. Going to the theatres, parties 
and balls in all sorts of weather in the thinnest possible 
dress. Dancing till in a complete state of perspiration, 
and then going home without sufficient overgarment, 
through the cool, damp air. 

Sleeping in feather beds, in seven by nine bed- 
rooms, without ventilation, and especially with two or 
three persons in the same small, unventilated bedroom. 

A surfeiting on hot and very stimulating dinners. 
Eating in a hurry, without masticating the food, and 
eating before going to bed every night, when the mind 
and body are exhausted by the toils of the day and the 
excitement of the evening. 

Beginning in childhood on tea and coffee, and going 
from one step to another, through chewing and smoking 
tobacco, and drinking intoxicating liquors. By personal 
abuse, and physical and mental exercises of every kind. 

Marrying in haste and getting an uncongenial com- 
panion, and living the remainder of the life in mental 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NOTES. 299 

excitement. Cultivating jealousy and domestic broils, 
and being always in mental ferment. 

Keeping children quiet by giving paregoric and 
cordials, by teaching them to suck candy, and by sup- 
plying them with raisins, nuts and rich cake. When 
they are sick, by giving mercury, tartar-emetic and arse- 
nic, under the mistaken notion that they are medicines 
and not irritant poisons. 

Allowing the love of gain to absorb our minds so 
as to have no time to attend to health. Following an 
unhealthy occupation because money may be made by it. 

Tempting the appetite with bitters and nicities, 
when the stomach says no, and by forcing food into it 
when nature does not demand and even rejects it. — 
Gormandizing between meals. 

Contriving to keep in a continual worry about 
something or nothing. Giving way to fits of anger. 

Being irregular in all our habits of eating and sleep- 
ing. Going to bed at midnight and getting up at noon. 
Eating too much, too many kinds of food, and that 
which is too highly seasoned. 



A Pleasant Room for the Girl. — The first thing 
we must do is to get rid of the popular fallacy that any 
closet or room will do for the servants to sleep in, so 
that we are apt to give them such accommodation that 
every spark of ambition, if it has ever been kindled, dies 
at once with the first glance at the only place she can 
call her own. In arranging the division of rooms in 



300 COMMON SENSE HEALTH NOTES. 

your house, do, if possible, select some airy, attractive 
place which may be converted into a pleasant living 
room. I know the builders of houses are now giving far 
more attention to servants' rooms than formerly, so 
don't let old-fashioned ideas clash against progress. Don't 
look into the neatly papered, painted and well ventilated 
room and say '*too good," and set up the old, broken, 
defaced furniture in a loft or closet, or tiny out-of-the- 
way corner, which **can't be spoiled." Give the girls a 
room in which they can take pride, and then try to 
rouse in them a sense of delight in pleasant and orderly 
surroundings. It may be dormant and slow in coming 
to life, but in coaxing, as well as discipline, with a con- 
tinued repetition of your demand for neatness, it will 
come. 



Don't Run Up Stairs.— It would seem that nature 
may possibly have intended that cats and dogs should 
run up-stairs, but she certainly does not want human 
beings to so ascend. Yet, does there live a woman or 
child that does not run up-stairs ? Men, probably, are 
too lazy to so rapidly elevate themselves ; but whether 
this be the reason or not, it is a fact that men are not 
nearly so prone to run up-stairs as are women and chil- 
dren. We would ask our male readers, whose wives 
and children are sinners in this respect, to cultivate the 
liabit of uttering a cautionary donH run upstairs^ when- 
ever they are about to ascend. Reiteration of the cau- 
tion will ultimately overcome the habit, which must be 
regarded as a very pernicious one. 



COMMON SENSE HEAL TH NO TES. 301 

Be Cheerful. — The man whose ha ! ha ! reaches 
from one end of the street to the other may be the same 
fellow who scolded his wife and spanked the baby before 
he got his breakfast, but his laughter is only the crackle 
of thorns under the pot The man who spreads his 
laughter through his life — before a late breakfast, when 
he misses the train, when his wife goes visiting and he 
has to eat a cold supper ; the man who can laugh when 
he finds a button off his coat ; when the furnace goes 
out in the night, and both of the twins come down with 
the measles at the same time — he's the fellow that's 
needed. He never tells his neighbor to have faith. 
Somehow he puts faith into him. 



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